The Rise of Magic
by LunaEtSidera
Summary: The Giant War is over, the Greeks and Romans lived in peace. Everyone can sit and relax. But there is one person who hated the Greeks. He will get help from whatever he needs to bring Camp Half-Blood down. In Brooklyn magicians kicked back. What was there to worry about? Chaos is defeated. But the Kanes could only think of one glyph, on the palm of one demigod: Percy Jackson.
1. Chapter 1

**PERCY JACKSON**

**ONE**

It wasn't until the flying corkscrews nearly beheaded me did I truly realize how messed up monsters are.

It had been almost six months since the war with the giants, and I was more than happy to be able to sit back and relax without a final 'save the world' exam. I've taken that one several times. The only down-side was that Annabeth wasn't here. She was over at Camp Jupiter, to help with rebuilding and designing the architecture, plus she was discussing peace negotiations with Reyna, the first praetor of the twelfth legion.

The second praetor was taking a part of exchange. Frank Zhang, now praetor, was here at Camp Half-Blood to help with the 'negotiations.' It was more like a constant party for Frank after being in the rule-restrictive 12 legion. He liked it here, but I could tell it was just a little too disorganized for his tastes, and Hazel wasn't there. The big guy was a great help, too. He kept the Ares cabin distracted while the rest of camp tried to rebuild after the demigod-civil war.

While everyone else slaved away, Frank changed from shape to shape in the arena with the entire Ares cabin yelling for blood and guts. It made Frank a little nervous, but seriously, it was an unfair fight. Unfair for the Ares kids. Frank was a superior fighter, hands down. No doubt, the roman aspect of Ares-Mars-was much better. I hoped now that the camps have united Mars will affect Ares in a good way.

Then again Ares might affect Mars in a bad way. This is when I tell myself to shut up.

Leo was having the time of his life: he had convinced his cabin to let him redesign the Hephaestus cabin. From what I can see coming out of it so far, it was going to be pretty wicked. Another part of his good time was Calypso. The gods had honored their promise (finally) and Calypso could leave her island whenever she wanted.

Calypso. I had a hard time even thinking about her without feeling stabs of guilt. She had nursed me back to health, and I promised that she would be released. I should have at least asked the gods if they had gotten to doing even 75% of their oath. She seems to have forgiven me, and I was happy to see that Leo had a girlfriend. The guy had been shafted a little bit before.

The monster attacks had been minimal, it was if they were afraid of demigods now that we had defeat the earth mother herself. Gaea was gone forever-or if she did come back it would not be for another 5,000 years. Annabeth put up the idea that we seal some directions on how to defeat Gaea again if she ever starts to stir again. It wasn't a bad idea.

Basically we were all kicking back after a _long_ few months. There was only one thing that weighed on my mind. I had had a run-in with perhaps the strangest person ever. He called himself Carter Kane. At first we tried to kill each other, which is typically normal in first meetings when you are a demigod, but then we had to join forces to defeat the son of sobek: a gigantic croc that was terrorizing the locals and eat one of our pegasi. He had worked this stuff that I knew must be some kind of magic to break the seal on a necklace that gave the croc its power, which made it shrink into a baby.

I was glad to let Carter have the croc. He seemed to think it would fit right in where he cam from. I made me think I might never want to live in his house. I glanced down at my palm. Carter had left a glyph-as he called it-on my palm. He said that all I needed to do was say his name he would come with back up to help. I won't say that I'm not dying with curiosity, but I don't want anything to happen that is so bad that I need to request back up from some one I don't know, and I might not be able to trust. But, I had learned never to forget little things like magical pictures on your hand, because you never know when something like that might come in handy.

So that pretty much summarizes the worries of the last six months. Flash to present: I was standing at the base of Half-Blood Hill, watching the Hunters of Artemis argue with Calypso and Piper about men. Really, when did they stop? That's when Leo ran down the hill, yelling at us at the top his lungs and waving a screw driver, which was kind of dangerous. His hair was on fire, but I was sure that wasn't the reason he was yelling. His hair was always on fire. No, there was an army of the freakiest creatures I'd ever seen. I've been through Tartarus, so that's saying a lot.

The monsters were humanoid, with skin colors that ranged from blood-red, to purple, to midnight-black. The strangest part was their heads, which were you average tool-shed equipment like chainsaws, corkscrews and others that belonged in Leo's cabin. One of the corkscrews had wings sprouting from either side of its . . . head? It looked like something that needed learn to stay under Tartarus's skin.

In the arena, where he was still fighting the Ares cabin, Frank stopped mid-swing and narrowly avoided getting beheaded. I went straight into kill-all-the-monsters mode and uncapped Riptide, sprinting up the hill to meet the battle. But before I could even take a swing Leo yelled at me, "It's no use!" He crouched behind a weapon's rack near the arena. "They're magical or something stupid like that!"

"What?" I asked. Why was I always asking that?

"I don't know!" Leo answered frantically. "They have these force fields that protect them, and there are dozens more coming!"

"That's bad," I said. Unkillable tool-box headed demons? Boring.

That's when the timely corkscrew flew at my neck and almost took my head with it. Right after that, the workshop army charged it. I slashed at one with a screw driver sprouting from its shoulders, but the blow just glanced off with a flash of red. The monster plowed right by me, slamming its fist into my stomach on the way. I tried to stab another monster, and had the same thing happen.

Time to change strategy.

"Leo," I said. "I need help. They _all _need to be led to the canoe lake. Can you get their attention?"

He gave a crazy grin and did a mock salute. "Aye-aye, supreme commander-" Another monster flew at him, but he managed to duck just in time.

"-Leo on it," he finished. His whole body burst into flames and he ran down the hill screaming, "hey! Yeah, you! Come here you stupid overgrown metal junkyard!" That got their attention.

I ran behind, gathering my strength. The canoe lake was only a mile away. I was sure Leo could run far when he had an army of assorted tools screaming-could chain saws scream?-bloody murder behind him. I yelled at a few Apollo kids who were nocking their arrows to shoot. They would only distract the demons from my distraction.

We burst through a thin tree line, and the canoe lake opened up before us. Leo ran straight across the dock and dove into the lake. The army stopped at the beach, staring at the water defiantly. This was my chance. I raised my arms, and the familiar tugging feeling start as the force and power of the water dent to my will. The lake parted, rising into two massive walls of water. I motioned slamming my hands down and the water obeyed, crashing into the army and enveloping them. When I released it, and the lake went back into the lake, there was no sign of the monsters but Leo was dripping wet on the beach.

He grinned. "Man, that never gets old."

* * *

Chiron stepped back from Thalia's tree, wearing a deep scowl. "There is nothing wrong with the tree. By all means those monsters should not have gotten through." He faced me and Leo. "I don't know what is going on."

I scowled. "Well, there has to be some kind of reason why-"

"Yes!" A voice from no where made us all jump. A transparent man, like a ghost, appeared from thin air. He had a hawkish nose, chiseled features, a outfit that was awful. It looked like it belonged in some old corny mafia movie. "This is only a taste of what to come!" The ghost said. "You Greeks, I hate you! Part of the reason my empire fell, you know. Of course the Romans did most of the work so they are paying, too. Soon, both of your people will feel the pain of the fall, and I will rule!" He gave a megalomaniac grin and began to fade. "So ta-ta." Then he faded completely.

I looked over at Leo and Chiron, who both looked equally shocked. "I guess I'm not the only who saw that?" I asked.

Leo blinked. "Did that guy say the Romans and Greeks took down his empire?" He turned to Chiron. "Is there _another_ empire I need to know about?" He demanded.

Chiron only shook his head. "I-I will have to think on this, children."

"Oka-a-y," I said. "Call Annabeth?"

* * *

"I don't know what they are." Annabeth said through the iris-message. "But we _have_ been having similar attacks here. They just started and they don't seem to be stopping." She tugged her long blonde hair idly.

I suppressed my fear. When Annabeth so freely admitted she didn't know, then I knew that something rare and dangerous was going. "So there isn't anything we can do? How do we fight them? I can't just drown them all in the canoe lake."

"Well there is more," Annabeth said. She leaned closer to the misty screen like she was afraid someone on her end my be eavesdropping. "Octavian has gone missing."

I raised my eyebrows. "Am I supposed to be upset about that?"

She rolled her eyes. "Well, it is weird." She looked away from the iris-message and her face went red. "No! No don't put it there!" She turned back. "Percy I have to go, there are some imbeciles here who can't read my blueprints."

"Okay, bye." I said.

"Bye. No! Not there-" the image cut off.

I didn't think the day would get any stranger. But of course I always think these things too soon.

Yells and horns went off, and when I reached the top of Half-Blood hill, I nearly had a heart attack. We were surrounded. There was not one army, but about one _hundred_ armies of monster charging Camp Half-Blood. Clarisse barked orders at the Aries cabin to form a line between camp and the monsters. Maybe if the monster weren't unbeatable I would have though we had no problem. But as they charged I new we were literally defenseless. There was not one weapon at camp that would help us now.

But there was an idea tugging at the back of my mind. I glanced down at my palm, where the glyph had been set by Carter Kane. I wondered if he had some way of defeating this army. He better, because right now he was our only chance of survival. I closed my eyes and imagined Carter, a dorky looking dude with curly black hair and dark skin. Maybe the magic he could use would help us.

"Carter," I whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

**SADIE**

**CHAPTER TWO**

Sadie here. I never thought I would be doing these recordings again, as I was sure that all of my bad luck was over. Seriously? Will I never learn? But no, Carter had to run into a weirdo while searching for his crocodile in the swamp. Typical. _He_ gets to go hunting for mysterious monsters and I'm stuck at the 21st nome teaching lessons about exploding cheese. Don't ask, it's just as disgusting as it sounds.

Everything has been great since Apophis was vanquished. No crazy monster raids, no evil magician hit squads, even our _ba_ visions were minimal. Mostly we saw the irritating things Setne has been doing lately. He wasn't stirring up too much-just a few forest fires and house robberies. But the problem was escalating quickly. At first he stole a few pieces of jewelry, now he's breaking into major banks and taking millions of dollars. He actually tried to burn down part of the Sierra Nevada redwood forest. Alright, I guess it hasn't be exactly 'great' as 'tolerable'.

. . . Fine! Magically, it's been getting down-right horrid. He has been sending little attack groups of demons to smaller nomes. Not enough to cause much damage, but they were getting bigger. The strange thing is that there have been no attacks on the 21st nome. Maybe he was too chicken, or maybe there was something else we don't know about. Something even bigger than us. That's what Carter thought.

Well that's enough of the heavy. Really, I'll let Carter bore you to death with facts. The important things are the obvious: like how that annoying redheaded chicken thing was perched on the balcony again, reciting random lines. Really where did she get this stuff? She was like an never-ending encyclopedia. She and Carter got along well. He seemed to think there was something important about her mutterings.

I say we just shoot a singe spell at her. Maybe she'll stop giving me headaches.

I was sitting back on the balcony, watching Philip of Macedonia send large waves across the pool, teaching the baby croc-which we have named Philip Junior-how to do flips underwater. Philip knew how to get the bacon. I sipped on some tea, enjoying the warm breeze. Well, I tried to make it look like I was enjoying the scenery and not the fact Walt/Anubis was sitting next to me. Shafts of afternoon sun beat into my head. I wondered if I could use that as an excuse if I did something that looked stupid . . .

"Ella likes water," the redheaded chicken lady had returned.

I groaned. "Walt, get rid of her."

Walt frowned, but there was a strong mix of Anubis in his expression. I still can't figure out how to tell when it was Anubis speaking, and when it was Walt, and then when they were speaking in unison. This is so-o-o confusing!

"She isn't doing any damage. She just likes to read a lot." He said.

"She likes to read, and she like to tell me about _everything_ she reads!" I said.

"Yeah." Walt didn't get up. I knew that he and Carter agreed: Ella the chicken-lady was important. If only her importance made sense. But when did important stuff ever make sense?

"Fine, but if she starts spouting random lines from books about dog anatomy, I will push her off the balcony." I grumbled.

Walt smiled faintly, but I could tell he wasn't really listening. Carter has been doing the same thing for a while. Ever since Ella said-

"Ella is here." Ella fluttered in front of me. She cocked her head and looked at Walt. "_The child of death will weave the cage, fire and magic shall release its rage, help from the far west will come, and the children of the gods divided succumb._" She picked a few of her feathers. "Ella liked words. Words, words everywhere." She flew in circles reciting lines from random books. _  
_

I had to give it to Carter, though. What she said about the child of death and gods sounded a lot like a prophecy. Still it was a major headache to try and understand. Carter had a theory, but it was so wild, so crazy, we haven't shared it with anyone. I even relented not to tell Walt.

Cleo came running from the mansion when she saw Ella. Cleo and Ella loved each other. They would go on talking about books, reading books, memorizing books and doing whatever else you could do with books. There were little things that Ella would say that Cleo said must be very critical: things about giants and titans. Whatever those were. I personally think Ella is a crazy . . .whatever she is.

I was about to tell Cleo not to get Ella going when Carter stumbled out of the mansion, looking like he's had his face within a foot of the laptop screen for a few hours. The was probably the truth. He had a startled, shocked look like he'd just made a huge discovery and it had bitten him. I found that it happened a lot in the typical life of a magician.

Carter sat down next to me and Walt, gathering his thoughts. I could tell he was really struggling to wrap his brain around whatever he'd found because he wasn't pouring out information like a demented fountain immediately. "I just found something out." He said. Very profound. "It is big."

I waited, know it would only take him a few seconds to break. I was right.

"Sadie I think the world just got a lot bigger." He said.

"What in the name of Egypt is that supposed to mean?" I rolled my eyes at him in exasperation.

He took a deep breath. "You know we discovered that the Egyptian gods were real? It was hard to believe, but true."

Walt frowned. "Not too hard to believe."

Carter sat forward. "Well I was doing some research. You know that Percy guy? He kept making exclamations like: holy Hera, or something about Poseidon's underpants. Well, those are _Greek_ gods."

"Your point?" I urged.

"Well, doesn't it seem obvious? The Greek gods are-"

A miniature tornado spun to life in front of us, successfully cutting Carter off. "Well, about time you figured something out!" A familiar voice said. The three of us leapt to our feet.

"Setne," Carter growled angrily.

"Hey, pals!" Setne appeared from the tornado, giving us his sales-man grin. "How have you been? I've been great, thanks." He continued without letting us speak. "Those are some interesting things your researching, Carter. The Greeks? Hate them. The Romans? Oh, man. I'd love to watch Rome burn to the ground!" He grinned. "But let's talk about something different. I sure you're wondering why I'm here."

"Actually," Carter said. "I'm wondering what misguided fool you've been using to cast your spells on the nomes. You're dead. You can't cast spells, but there have been some pretty complex spells being cast lately."

Setne grinned again. "You really think I'm going to tell you? Carter, Carter, _Carter! _Please. When did the enemy ever tell you their plan?"

"Well," I said. "If the enemy is very confident, say so confident that he knows he'll win no matter what, he'd just tell us his plan and laugh at us as we tried to stop us."

Setne laughed, and gave us a _seriously?_ look. "I am not as stupid as some gods." He glared at the sky accusingly.

I groaned. "The gods are not _all knowing_, you know."

"Maybe the gods of Egypt, but-" he cut himself off. "Anyway, I'm just here to tell you that you should prepare yourself for your new life, under the reign of Setne the Great." He frowned. "Setne the Sinister? I'll have to think about this . . ." He clapped his hands together. "Well, so long!"

Carter lunged forward. "_Tas!"_

Setne rolled his eyes. "Really, Carter, that is getting annoying. The first thing I did was disenchant myself. Thank you very much." He faded away, leaving Carter looking like he was ready to blow up.

"Okay, brother dear," I said. "You obviously have something riding on you. You and Zia been arguing?"

He looked at me like he wanted to slap me. People did that a lot. "No, this has nothing to do with Zia and I-"

"Whatever," I said. Really, I love watching his face turn red, but this wasn't normal. Usually Carter just rolled my teasing remarks off, but he was acting increasingly agitated. "Maybe we should call Amos, if this is so important?"

Carter frowned. "Yeah, I guess. You scry Amos, I'll excuse Zia from her class." He turned away and walked into the mansion.

"There is definitely something up with him," Walt said.

"You can say that again," I grumbled.

I sat in the library, in a chair around the round table. Amos, Walt, and Zia had joined Carter and me in something that was feeling like a military briefing. Carter had a whole file full of paper, like he was preparing to lecture us on top secret air force bases or something.

Amos sat forward. "So you called me here, and I'm guessing it is important. I was in the middle of diplomatic negotiations."

Carter splayed his fingers on the file, clearly collecting his thoughts. He seemed to be struggling to force what he was thinking into audible words. He opened the file. "About two or three months ago I ran into a guy while searching for that swamp monster-his name was Percy Jackson. He is the reason why I'm calling you guys here. I think his the son of god.

Zia frowned as if she hadn't heard him quite right. "Do you mean _host_ of a god?" She asked.

"No," Carter said firmly. "I mean the literal son of a god. Most likely the son of a sea god. He had power that no magician could have. Sadie and I were maybe as powerful as him while we were the eye of Horus and Isis. I'm thinking he was the son of Poseidon." He paused to let this sink in.

Of course I came up with the question everyone in the room was no doubt thinking. "What is Poseidon?" I asked.

Carter rolled his eyes. "Poseidon is the god of the sea. He is one of the three most powerful gods, direct son of the titan Kronos."

"Oh, ok." I said.

Carter shook his head. "Don't you see the implications of this? That the Egyptian gods are _not_ the only gods that are real? I think our world has just increased by tenfold."

Carter and I instinctively looked to Amos. He had grown strangely silent. "Children," he said. "This is a topic as big as the gods themselves-"

I leapt to my feet. "You knew! You knew that there were other gods out there! You _knew!"_ Then another thought surfaced. "We could have gotten help with our problems!"

Amos shook his head. "No, the Greeks are just as war-ridden as we were."

"Greeks," Carter said. "When does it stop? When does the world stop expanding?"

"Never," Amos said. "It will never stop getting bigger, Carter. But you don't have to worry about that."

That's when Carter's palm burst into blue light. The eye of Horus blazed on his palm, and he crumpled, his face falling onto the table. Zia lunged toward him. "Carter!" She yelled, shaking his shoulder. "Carter!"

Clearly calling his name was pointless. He was zonked out. But then he sat bolt-right up. He had a wild-eyed look. "Amos," he said, his voice dangerously calm. "This had just become a problem for us."

Amos visibly paled. "What are you saying?"

"Setne has just opened war against the Greeks. Their home is being attacked by an army of demons enchanted so their weapons are useless." Carter jumped to his feet. "We have to help them. This is about to become a slaughter. According to Percy, the same thing is happening in California at another camp."

Amos started shaking his head, but Carter interrupted him. "We HAVE to do this! What if there is no other way to show the Greeks that we are trustworthy? We could use their help as much as they need us!"

Amos hadn't looked so helpless since he had to watch us take Apophis on. "Alright," he consented. "But we must take precautions."

"On it," Carter ran out of the library.

Everyone looked to me. Typical. "Well," I said. "Seems we should get ready for battle."

We were ready in a flash. The veterans of the battle of Apophis were ready to take on anything. Alyssa spun her staff, thinking over her favored spells for the battle. I chanted until a portal opened-dangerous, I know, but there is no way I memorizing all the auspicious moments. The portal swirled in a whirl-wind of sand. The magicians poured through, not really know what we were going into.

What was on the other side was quite terrifying.

Hundreds of demons swarmed around a camp, while the campers struggled to hold them off without much luck. There were thee making the most damage, and one kept changing shape. The other was randomly bursting into flames-I guess I should have been more shocked but seriously, my dad is blue. What do you expect? The last guy had a hurricane of water spinning around him, sweeping demons up and forcing them into sand. Percy Jackson.

It was a brave attempt, but I could tell the demigods were loosing their strength. I motioned for the magicians to follow me, and we charged down the hill to join the fight.

'Join the fight' wasn't a proper way to describe it. I am proud to say we dominated. Carter and Julius took on their Horus avatars, and directed magical spell upon magical spell on demons. The demons didn't have a chance. When the demigods saw the demons being defeated, they started cheering. It was a short battle. Carter slashed the last demon in half with his _khopesh _and turned to the demigods on the hill.

There was tense moment, as three of the demigods came down the hill, grim looks on their face. Then the guy who had been on fire burst into a wild grin. "Man!" He yelled. "That was just _evil_, and I mean good evil!" He gave another crazy grin. He looked like a Latino who had hyped up on way too much caffeine.

I stepped forward as they got close enough to hear me. "My name is Sadie Kane, eye of Isis." I added the last bit for revelry, but they didn't react. Clearly they didn't know what 'eye of isis' meant.

The dark haired boy with green eyes nodded. "My name is Percy Jackson. I'm the son of Poseidon."

The fire-boy grinned, _again,_ "And the supreme-commander Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus, a.k.a, lord of fire."

Finally the other guy, who had changed shape several times, introduced himself. "I'm Frank Zhang, son of Mars."

Carter nodded. "We've met."

Frank frowned. "No we haven't. I mean, we might have. Are you Canadian? I'm from Canada, so-"

"No," Carter said. "I meant Percy."

Percy did a little mock salute. "What's up?"

Walt started to say something, but Leo backed up. "Whoa, dude. What they heck are you? I mean, like there are two people standing where you are."

"I'm Walt, the host to Anubis . . . the other guy you see." Walt explained.

Leo nodded. "Ah. So Anubis is . . .?"

Carter would've liked to explain, but I wanted short. "Carter-Horus-war god and pharaoh of the gods, Walt-Anubis-god of death and funerals, me-Isis-goddess of magic and queen of the gods. We're Egyptian."

Then I saw the horse-man. He galloped, from the waist down very equine, from the waist up and regular man with brown eyes and scraggly beard. Percy saw him coming and called, "Chiron! Here are the other guys!"

I gulped when the horse guy came over and looked over us. "We have a lot to speak about," he said. "We haven't been in contact like this for more than 2,000 years."

"Yes," Percy said. "How about we start from the beginning?"

I groaned. This was going to take a long time.

Author's note:

Hey! I'm glad some of you guys like my fan fiction! I'm going to very busy for the next few weeks (school, debate classes and tournaments and so on) but I'll try to post a chapter at least once a week. If you have any comments about the style, maybe something about how the characters would do whatever, I'm open to constructive criticism! Hope you guys enjoyed this part of the story and will stick around fore more. =D


	3. Chapter 3

**PERCY**

**CHAPTER THREE**

I would like to say that when I heard the Greek and Roman gods weren't the only ones out there I took in strides. I mean, I've heard of weirder stuff, right? But I was totally freaking out inside. Bad enough living in a world where all the Greek legends, gods, and monsters are real. Bad enough with the mind-boggling roman thing. Now apparently ancient Egypt wanted to be a part of the spotlight, too. I couldn't help but wonder if _all_ of the legends from history were true. . . Not the kind of thing to think about. It tends to give you a major headache.

The two kids in charge-Sadie and Carter Kane-seemed pretty cool. Just regular magicians, kind of like every other demigod, trying to survive in a monster-ridden world. They told me about the near destruction of the world with the rise of Apophis. I thought it was strange how close the events of the Apophis Incident happened with the Gaea and the Giants Incident. Two very large catastrophes happening almost at the same time.

We made our way to the Big House, Sadie and Carter taking a few of their lead magicians with them. Walt-that dude was as creepy as Nico-a blonde girl with a staff who called herself Alyssa and a boy named Felix tagged along behind all of us. In the Big House, the first thing Sadie notice was Seymour, who growled at us when we came in. She growled back, and Seymour settled into shocked silence.

Chiron carefully backed up into his wheelchair, his horse body disappearing and being replaced by fake legs. We sat around the ping-pong/conference table and began to share stories.

Sadie and Cater took turns telling us about the rise of Apophis, the Egyptian god of chaos and general evilness. They told us about how they execrated him, and how Setne got away. Carter explained that the monsters that attacked our camp were actually called demons, and that they were from the Duat. The idea of alternate dimensions, like layers of the ocean, was high on the craziness list, right next to 'whole bunch of Egyptian gods'. I suppose I could understand it well enough. That didn't mean it didn't freak me out as much as falling down Tartarus. Well almost as much.

When we told them about our troubles, the resurrection of Kronos, the awaking of Gaea and the giants, Carter and Sadie looked thoroughly impressed. I suppose saving all of mankind twice in the period of a year is kind of respect worthy. When I told them about the ghost who had visited us earlier, Carter snapped something that I couldn't understand, but I was pretty sure it was a curse.

"Setne," he said. "Stupid old ghost is up to no good."

Sadie scowled. "This shouldn't be possible. While we were attacking Isis had enough time to figure out the enchantment on the demons, and there is no way that Setne could have done it himself. It was way too advanced."

Carter nodded in agreement. "So what fool of a magician has he convinced to do this?" He asked.

I shrugged. I didn't even get the whole magician thing. "So . . . can you guys like pull rabbits out of a hat or something?"

The door to the Big House burst open and Piper, Jason, Frank and Leo walked in. They joined us around the table. Jason gave a wane smile, and Piper did a little wave. Leo's nose burst into flames. Carter, who was sitting next to Leo, jerked away in horror. "Y-you're on fire!"

Leo batted it away. "Sorry. Happens all the time, it's _so_ embarrassing. I'm the son Hephaestus, you know. God of forges and fire. Make sense?" He pulled some nuts and bolts out of his tool belt and start fiddling with them. When he saw that we were all watching him his eyebrows went up. "What? Am I on fire again?"

"How?" Sadie asked.

Leo shrugged. "Could be my looks." He grinned.

Walt cleared his throat. "So we agree we aren't going to kill each other?"

"Well you are the god of death," Leo said. "Are you going to kill us?"

"I'm not just the god of death!" Then he frowned, like he hadn't meant say that. "I am the _host_ of the god of _funerals_." Walt muttered.

"And the difference is?" Leo asked.

Walt opened his mouth, but Piper raised her hands. "Okay, how about we just talk nicely?" Her charmspeak washed through the room, making every one look ready for a great chat.

Sadie shook her head like she was clearing her mind. "I have felt this before. Enchantment?"

"Charmspeak," Piper corrected. "It's a daughter of Aphrodite thing."

"Goddess of love," everyone looked to Felix, who had been quiet before then. "What?" He asked. "My mom loved Greek mythology. She kind of pounded it in my head."

"Okay," I said. "So what god are you hosting?" I asked him.

Felix laughed. "I'm not hosting a god! I'm still trying to figure out which Egyptian god controls wintery stuff."

I wasn't sure about the Egyptian gods, but I was pretty sure that there were no big winters in Egypt. I didn't say anything, though. The kid was obviously excited. For whatever reason he had a small army of penguins around him.

Frank tapped floor with his bow for attention. "So the basic plan is that we need to stop this Lar? Or ghost, as you call it?"

"Basically." Sadie said.

"It won't be easy, though." Carter said.

"Of course," I muttered. I was beginning to think he was pessimist of the group. I noticed everyone staring at me. "What?" I asked. "Don't pretend you weren't thinking the same thing."

Leo raised his hand. "Guilty."

Carter was still watching me. "Well, go on." I prompted.

He cleared his throat a little self consciously-I had a feeling I'd interrupted him while he was on a role- "We have to find where Setne is hiding out, and then we have to find the magician working the spells. And then there might be defensive spells and traps-"

"It'll be a typical day," Sadie said.

"Yup," I said. Typical day in the life of Percy Jackson. "So we find a ghost, somehow beat the truth out of him, and solve the problem. Cake."

Jason frowned. "Haven't we learned yet that we should _never_ use the word 'cake' to describe a quest? It never ends well."

I glared at him, and held his hands up. "Hey, just saying."

"Well, that clears it all up." I stood. "I'll IM Annabeth and see if she knows anything about this. Maybe she'll have a clue where to start looking. We should choose a few people to come."

Leo whooped. "Team Leo for the Argo II! What do you say, pick seven again? We have seven rooms, plus the extra, so that's eight."

"Whoa," I said. "Slow down. I don't know. We have to figure out how many and who Carter and Sadie want coming."

Felix raised his hand. "What is the Argo II?"

"Well, my apprentice," Leo said. "The Argo II is a top-of-the-line warship equipped to take on mother earth herself! There used to be a dragon figurehead, but I'm working on reattaching Festus's head to his new body."

Felix gave an awed look. "You have a pet dragon? Awesome!"

I sensed that the conversation was about to go way off-track. "Well, let's sort this out. Who is going?"

Sadie and Carter glanced at each other. Carter looked up. "Well, Sadie and I are coming. I think Walt should come, and maybe Jaz."

I didn't ask who Jaz was. I asked Jason, "What do you say?"

Jason shrugged. "As long as Piper is with me, sure." Piper smiled, overjoyed to here that and took his hand.

Leo pumped his fist. "So that clears it up. Me, Percy, Jason and Piper-sorry Frank but you're need at camp to help out-and they will come." He motion vaguely at Carter and Sadie.

Felix jumped up and down. "What about me?" He asked. "I want to go on the dragon ship!"

Carter turned to Felix. "This is going to be dangerous-"

"Fighting Apophis was dangerous!" Felix protested.

"-and I don't think there will be room." Carter finished. "There are plenty of things here that you could do. Look at that lava wall!" He said, trying to cheer Felix up. Felix nodded and sat back down, looking dejected.

"Ah, come on." Leo said, guilt on his face. "After we're done with this, I'll give you a VIP tour of the ship and teach you the controls."

"Yes!" Felix pumped his fist and ran out of the Big House.

I clapped my hands. "Okay. So, who's up for lunch?"

The mess hall didn't disappoint for the magicians. Carter gaped as food appeared on his plate, and the enchanted cup filled with coke. Sadie had this disgusting looking green soup and . . . cold tea? Who knew?

Felix was turning his food into penguins and sending them running around the hall. I leaned over to Carter. "Really, is there an Egyptian god of snow?"

Carter frowned. "Don't think so."

"So where does he get power from?"

"No clue," Carter admitted.

"Okay." I said. No surprise, but there was an idea forming in my mind.

"When will you guys be ready to leave?" Carter asked.

I shrugged. "It depends. Leo has been installing a new interface or something on the Argo II, and I'm not sure if it's done yet. It could be tomorrow or next week."

Carter carved some weird glyph on the table that was probably a curse or something. It was the eye again. "What does that mean?" I asked.

Carter looked at the symbol like he was surprised to see it. "It's the eye or Horus, the god I host. Writing has kind of become a habit."

"Oh." I looked out at Half-Blood Hill, with the Golden Fleece glittering in the branches of Thalia's tree, and the afternoon sunlight streaming over it. I loved this place. I couldn't imagine life without Camp Half-Blood, with the lava wall, the canoe lake, and the arenas. I remembered the chariot race that was coming up. There was a chariot race scheduled tomorrow.

I glanced sideways at Carter, wondering how he would be on a chariot . . . but then of course there was a game of capture-the-flag night as well. It was one of those crazy weeks when they hosted a game every night. Yesterday Chiron had released a bunch of deadly serpent monsters into the forest for us to capture. Whoever got the most, and didn't die, won. It was just like the game Daedalus as made us play when he was alive and working at the camp.

"So," I said to Carter. "How are you about capture-the-flag?"

"What?" He asked.

"It's a game. We're going to play it tonight. You want to give it a try? It's kind of ritualistic for new-comers to play. It will be Frank's first time, although he's played stuff similar, much harder." I said.

Carter thought for a second, but Sadie, who had over-heard, leaned across the table. "Of _course_ we want to play!" She said, glaring at Carter. Carter gave a wane smile. "There's the answer."

The horn blew, and campers got up to go to their respective classes. We demigods never let something like a unbeatable army of demons and glowing chicken-men get in the way of our destruction classes. I got up. "Well, that's out cue. Why don't I show you around?"

Carter and Sadie got stuck at the lava wall. Sadie went up several times, but stopped when she had a piece of molten rock nearly hit her face. She was fine with watching Carter almost get killed after that. Next we went to the arenas, where Frank was back to sparring the Ares cabin. He switched shape into a velociraptor-freaking awesome, by the way-and made to Ares cabin scatter in shock.

Sadie laughed appreciatively. "How in the name of Egypt does he do that?"

"It's his special talent," I said. "He's a descendant of Poseidon, so he can do that."

"Can you do change shape?" Sadie asked.

"Nope." I said. "Apparently saving the world a few times wasn't good enough to pass on the gift. But I can talk to horses," I added.

"I wish I was demigod." Sadie grumbled. "I never got to talk to animals when I was the eye of Isis."

"Trust me," I said. "Being a demigod may mean that you have powers, but it also means that you a smell that appears on every monster's radar for a three-mile radius."

Sadie smirked. "You smell that bad?"

"Apparently." I agreed.

We moved on the canoe lake, where the Apollo guys were doing target practice on the lake. The Naiads would throw random objects up-tires, shoes, small sea monsters-and the Apollo kids would stick an arrow into them. They never missed. I knelt at the water's edge, where strange rippling had started. A hippocampus surfaced, flicking it's mane and making water drench me.

"Hey there," I said. "What brings you here?"

The hippocampus tossed his head again and went back under. I frowned. I had a feeling I should probably check that out later, but for now I was going to finish the Kane's tour. I stood. "Well, here's the canoe lake. We canoe on it."

"Duh," Sadie muttered. "Hey they said you can control water. How about a demonstration?"

I hesitated a moment, and then shrugged my shoulders. "Why not?" I willed the water to rise, and it obeyed. A sleek stream of water rose, spinning in a small tornado. The column shrank back down and became a massive whirl pool before calming and returning to its normal state. Carter and Sadie looked awed.

"I'll take the monsters," Sadie muttered. "What's next?"

"The pegasus stables are next." I led them back up to the main camp. I looked up at the sun, which had somehow seemed to have dipped three-hours worth. Time sometimes flew by so fast. I just wished it did that in my math class. At the stables, blackjack was waiting.

_So,_ he said, _here are the new guys. They got donuts?_ He asked. I wasn't going to try to correct his grammar, or tell him that there were no donuts.

_Yeah,_ I replied. _These are the new guys. They're Egyptian magicians." _

_They smell like donuts,_ Blackjack said.

I didn't answer that. "This is Blackjack," I told Carter and Sadie. "Fastest and best pegasus ever."

"Can you talk to it?" Carter asked.

"Yeah, I can talk to _him._" I said. "You know, Blackjack says that he wouldn't mind giving you guys a ride."

_I did?_ Blackjack asked. _ I did not! _He protested.

Carter backed away. "Nah, that's okay."

Sadie had a glint in her eyes. I already knew her answer. "Yeah, that would be awesome!"

But just then the horn blew. "Oh, it looks like capture-the-flag is about to happen. You guys gonna play?"

"Yes, of course." Sadie said. "I already told you that."

"Okay," I said. "Follow me."

It didn't take them long to figure out the armor. Carter turned around, looking a little awkward in his set of armor. "It's pretty cool," he said. "But I don't think I'll need it."

"I think you should keep them on anyways." I said. "It can get hectic."

Sadie was messing with her straps, and Walt was walking around in a set of leather armor. I didn't see how leather was going to do any good, but he insisted that it was enchanted, so it was safe. Whatever. I helped Felix with his armor, while he begged for armor for his penguins. I carefully explained that the penguins could stay and guard the armory.

Then another girl came in, Drew, from the Aphrodite cabin. Last year, Piper had booted Drew from her command as senior camper of the Aphrodite cabin. She walked straight into the armory, and saw Sadie, Carter and Walt. She stopped short, like the air had been punched from her gut.

Sadie had a expression like she'd eaten something disgusting. "Drew," she said.

"You," Drew said angrily. "What is _she_ doing here?" Drew snapped.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Sadie snapped back.

"I happen to a demigod, daughter of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty." She said with a high-and-mighty air.

Sadie rolled her eyes, laughing. "Yeah, right. Well I beat the god of Chaos and saved the world multiple times. What have you done? Besides painting your nails?"

Drew looked ready to blow up. Her face turned bright red. "Well, miss-"

"Okay," I said, because I sensed a full-on fight about to ensue. "I really don't care if you guys know each other. Drew, are you playing?"

Drew looked at Sadie with pure irritation. "Yes. As long as I'm _not _on her side."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Fine, just get ready."

Drew walked to the armor and jerked a set off the wall, glaring at Sadie. Sadie ignored her, and snapped her fingers. For a second, Walt flickered in and out with the other guy, Anubis. Drew's eyes widened. "You!" She gasped.

Sadie smiled. "Yup, my amazing boyfriend who is hosting a god." The look on her face was so smug, I was afraid Drew might just lose it completely. Surprisingly, Drew just turned and continued to don her armor.

Leave it to girls.

I quickly put on my well-worn armor and guided the others to the clearing outside of the forest, where Chiron was announcing what cabins would be on what side and so on. Poseidon cabin, (me) Athena, Hermes, Hades, and Nemesis cabins were on the blue side along with a few other minor god cabins, and the magicians Alyssa, Sadie, Carter, and Walt. On the red side there was Demeter, Hypnos (there was not many of them present), Zeus, Aphrodite, and Apollo, also with a few minor god cabins. The magicians with the red team were Felix (poor little kid), Jaz, Julian, and a Russian kid, Leonid.

"Begin!" Chiron yelled, and the respective leaders led their teams to their forts.

I was leader of blue, so I led them to the fort, of course. The flag was in an underground tunnel, guarded by a few other campers. I could hear whoops and yells along with the clang of metal and metal outside our fort. Inside the fort was one large room, with a trapdoor in the middle that led to a tunnel system riddled with traps. The flag was hidden in the labyrinth tunnels. Outside the fort was a deep trench, which had a mesh net above to drop on anyone who fell into the trenches. There were walls to duck behind and take cover.

It was quite an elaborate set-up, and we no doubt had the upper hand. Carter and Sadie approached me. "So, what's the plan?" Carter asked.

"The plan is," I said, "we will sneak out around the army in front of us and make it to the red base, where you guys will be a diversion. I'll get into the base and take out any of the guards in there. Got it?"

Carter and Sadie nodded in unison. "We'll make this a distraction to remember."

I grinned. We sneaked out from behind, and watched a group of about twenty campers gang up on the fort. Walt walked out of the fort calmly, facing the group by himself. I glanced at Sadie and Carter, but they didn't seem too worried. Walt raised his hands in a dramatic motion, and the ground cracked open, allowing two dogs out. They were sleek and black, with long pointed ears and luminous golden eyes. They had neckbands with hieroglyphics carved out in gold. They were large, at least five feet tall. Walt pointed at the campers and muttered a command. The dogs leapt at the campers with the speed and power of a hellhound.

As Carter was explaining to me that the dogs were jackals, some breed of dog that lived in Egypt, I saw another magician-Julian-encase himself a holographic chicken-man. "Why is he a chicken?" I whispered, crouching behind a fallen tree.

"It's not a chicken!" Carter hissed. "It's a Horus warrior!" Sadie giggled at his irritation.

After that we traveled in silence, navigating around small battles to find the red fort. When we got there we ducked behind a line of bushed along the edge of a clearing, where the fort was. The red fort was build around a large lake. I knew from experience that the flag would be set up on an island in the middle of the lake.

Guarding the entrance of the fort were two campers, armed to the teeth. They paced back and forth, obviously bored. I turned to the Kanes. "Okay, here's your part."

They nodded, again in unison and jumped out, muttering enchantments. They lifted their hands and fireworks burst from them, flying at the guards. The fireworks exploded into red, gold, and green, leaving the guards stunned. Then they engaged the guards, leading them away. A few more campers ran from the fort in pursuit.

I sprinted across the clearing into the fort and surveyed the surroundings. The fort had walls rising up around a large pond, with an island in the middle. There were a few other campers, who all attacked me. They weren't hard to subdue with a few blasts of water in their faces. There was sandy path winding around the large pond, but no path leading across it. That was no problem for me, being the son of the sea god and all.

I ran lightly across the pond, but as I ran the water began to solidify into ice under my feet. I looked up and saw Felix standing at the edge of the water, his fingertips light brushing the surface. Icy tendrils spread out, rapidly hardening the water. I concentrated and tried to make the water bend to my will, but there was nothing but ice. I started slipping all over the place, and almost fell several times.

Felix didn't stop there. He stood, raising his hands slowly. The ice rose with him, building into a white wall separating me from the flag. I uncapped Riptide, and slashed at the wall, but all I did was make some pieces shatter. The more I dug out, the more ice formed. I stepped back, looked up at the impenetrable wall of ice that had surrounded the island in a matter of seconds.

I probably would have stood there in awe if just the man for the job stumbled in.

Leo walked in the fort, looked up at the wall of ice and whistled. "Who did that?" Then his expression went guarded. "Khione isn't back, is she?"

"Nope," I said. "Felix did this."

"The little kid?" Leo asked incredulously.

I nodded. "Think you can burn through it?"

Leo saluted. "Supreme-Commander Leo on it!" His hands burst into flames, and he plunged them into the ice. He melted through it, but the ice kept getting thicker. Leo pulled back. "I'm going to need to burn through it quickly, like enough for me to get though all at once." His whole body burst into flames.

I heard a small yelp from behind me, a little stifled. I turned and saw Calypso. She covered her mouth. "Sorry. Catches me of-guard every time he bursts into flames."

Leo burned a man-sized hole through the ice, and fell in. I ran through after him, closely followed by Calypso. The three of us stood, with Drew and Felix between us and the flag. Then Sadie and Carter joined us, and Drew didn't hesitate to run at Sadie. I dodged around Felix, only to swept aside by a wave of freezing-cold ice.

I leapt back to my feet, and saw Leo grabbing the flag. The turned blue, and Leo grinned. I walked over and high-fived him. I faced Felix, who looked a little dejected. "Hey," I said, tossing him a chunk of ice that vaguely shaped a penguin. "That was some amazing ice bending."

He smiled and looked at the ice. It changed shape, and became more and more penguin shaped. He set it down and tapped it with his ivory boomerang. The little penguin shivered and started waddling around.

Carter broke up Sadie and Drew. Sadie scowled and shot Drew an evil look. Carter ignored them and gestured to the high wall of ice. It went up at least thirty feet, breaking through the fort roof. "What spell was that?" He asked in shock.

Felix looked around him, like he couldn't believe what had happened either. "I-I don't know. I didn't really use a spell. It was more of a feeling."

I frowned, and my mixed suspicions about Felix started to become clearer. There was only one more sign waiting to be revealed.

We walked out of the fort and showed the flag. The campers and magicians gathered in the clearing. The blue team surged forward, cheering and yelling. I grinned, and Leo held up the flag. Chiron trotted in the middle of the chaos, causing calm. We watched, waiting for his announcements.

He was about the open his mouth, when several gasps echoed through the crowd. I strained to see, and when I did . . .

A blue and white aura had enveloped Felix. A miniature snow storm was blowing around him. I though he was just messing around, but he looked just as confused as everyone else. A strong north wind blew, so powerful I could almost lean into it without falling over. Then it calmed, and a symbol snow-flake and with a horse galloping across emblazoned itself on the ground in ice.

Felix looked around in awe and confusion. "What is it? What does it mean?"

Chiron tilted his head, like he was listening to a voice in his head. His eyes widened in shock for a second, and then he calmed. "Everyone!" He called. "Quiet. I'd like to welcome Felix, the son of Boreas, god of snow and the north wind."


	4. Chapter 4

**I'm so sorry it took so long to update! I've been busy with a writer's block (annoying because I rarely get them) and some other things. I'm going to switch it between 3rd person and 1st person depending on whose point of view it is. (Like Percy, Annabeth, Carter and Sadie as first person and whoever else as third). **

**I hope you guys enjoy this. I promise it will NOT take me this long to update again. **

**LEO**

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Leo wasn't sure what to make of it.

So the kid was a demigod? Did that make Felix Greek _and_ Egyptian? He didn't know. That was not the only thing to weigh on his mind, though. His project, that long six month surprise project for Calypso, was done. Everyone else knew what it was except for her, just to make her even more frustrated and excited to find out what it was.

Luckily for Calypso, Leo knew that the project was done. By now it was powered up and running, ready to join the party again. He fidgeted with his tool belt, wanting to leave as soon as possible. Finally he couldn't bear it anymore. He sneaked behind Calypso and took her hand. "Come on!" He said. "The surprise is ready."

Calypso tried to hid it, but she was clearly overjoyed to hear it. She nodded and followed him through the forest, down a path Leo had beaten to life over the past year and half; while building the Argo II, and his new project. They left the tree line and reached a towering cliff-face. Calypso rolled her eyes (a habit she had recently picked up, no thanks to Annabeth). "Why am I not surprised that it's Bunker 9?"

Leo grinned. "Because my awesomeness never fails."

She pushed his arm with a smile and forged ahead of him. "Well, what's the big surprise? I don't see any huge automaton monsters leaping at me."

He placed his hand on the cliff face, and a freakishly large door slowly swung open, so silent he though there must have been nymphs for the hinges to oil them. He tried to suppress another grin, to no avail. He led her in and the lights automatically turned on, illuminating the bunker. Blueprints and vague sketches were hung on the walls, with tables filled with enough nuts and bolts to last Leo and several other Leos a lifetime. But there was one alcove that did not light up. It remained as dark and shadowy as ink. Suddenly two bright red circular lights pricked the darkness like eyes.

Calypso froze, while Leo put a look of shock on his face. Oh, he was _so_ cruel.

The eyes rose much higher, as if the mountainous body it belonged to was standing. A series of strange clicks and whirs came from the alcove as a brilliant bronze plated dragon crawled out gracefully. It stood before them and spread its wings in an immense coppery canopy above them. Calypso let out a startled squeak and backed away, ready to dart.

Leo grinned, decided to end the moment. "Hey, Festus!" He yelled. "You're all whole again!" Leo could help but feel his throat tighten with joy as Festus admired his new body. He remembered when his amazingly awesome dragon have been zapped out of the sky by that witch of a goddess Khione, and Midas's lazers had torn the dragon apart. "Welcome back." He whispered.

Calypso seemed to understand Leo's expression. "I have never seen a feat like this," she said in awe.

Leo shrugged, a moment of modesty. "Hey, it's been done before. Figured I could jerry-rig a dragon body." He gave a large smile. "But then again, I am Leo Valdez. What do you expect?"

She groaned. _There's the Leo she knew._ She held out her hand for Festus. The dragon crept closer, and she touched his snout, admiring the way his plating shined. That when Leo clapped his hands and said, "well, I guess there's only one more thing to do!"

"And what is that?" She asked, dreading the answer.

"We take Festus for a joyride, duh!" He bounded onto Festus's back like he was born to ride. He noticed her hesitant look, and offered her his hand. "Oh, it's not that scary. Trust me, even if we do fall we'll survive. I've done plenty of times."

Calypso took his hand, but she was afraid he was not joking. He didn't sound like it. She clung to the bronze plating, while Leo took the reigns. "I have installed any seat belts yet, but don't worry. You won't fall." Leo said, knowing full on that she would worry.

She let out a surprised gasp when Festus took a flying leap out of Bunker 9, and with a powerful swipe of his wings lift off the ground, into the sky. They passed through the tree line and burst out above the forest. Rising higher and higher into the clouds, Calypso abandoned the bronze plates and clung onto Leo for dear life. They leveled out above the clouds, Festus's wings held out horizontally either way.

When she was sure that she was going to fall off and become a goddess-sized grease spot on the ground, she opened her eyes. Slowly, she unwound her arms from around Leo. Wind blew her hair back and Leo's into her face. She batted his head away and leaned back, looking down even though her knew she shouldn't have.

The earth was hundreds of feet below them, and Camp Half-Blood looked like a spot on the ground. She looked ahead in awe, watching the horizon gently slope down. _The Earth is round,_ she thought giddily.

Leo glanced back at her, a smile playing across his face. He decided to let her enjoy the view before he did something really, really mean. He could remember the day when the gods let her go. It was, without any argument, the best day of his life. Well, that and the day he watch Gaea die. It was a close tie. He remembered everything with such clarity it could have happened that day.

Flashback:

The seven of the prophecy, with Nico and Thalia had stood in the throne room of gods, waiting for their godly parent to call them out. Percy and Annabeth looked a little bored, like this had happened before. Hephaestus called Leo to him, and he had marched to his god-sized failure of a father. "Leo," Hephaestus had said. "I know I haven't been the most . . . _interactive_ father, but you have made me very proud. You used your wits, strength, intelligence and courage to succeed at everything you put your mind to. You have truly outdone yourself over the past year."

Images passed though his head: Echo standing over Narcissus at the pond, Festus falling out of the sky and exploding, Percy and Annabeth falling into Tartarus, Calypso standing on the beach of Ogygia. He was pretty sure that he had failed more than he succeeded.

" . . . and I think you deserve it." Hephaestus was still talking. "Boy?" He snapped. "Are you listening to me?"

Leo jerked out of his reverie. "Y-yes! Present and accounted for."

"I was saying, that I swear on the river Styx to grant you any wish, _within reason._" Hephaestus seemed to have to force the words out.

Leo stood there, stunned. There was a crowd of wishes that stood up and screamed at the same time. Well, he wouldn't mind having Festus back, but there was one wish that stood out right in the front row. It had Calypso's face. "Remember the promise Percy made _all_ of the gods take?" He asked.

Hephaestus shifted uncomfortably. "Um, yes?"

"You need to let Calypso go!" He blurted out. "Let her free. Let her go where she wants to go."

"That is your wish?" The god of forges looked immensely relieved.

Leo smirked. "What do you think I was going to ask? Dance around in pink boxers?" The picture was horrible.

Hephaestus scowled. "Watch your tongue, boy."

Then the throne room and melted away. Leo looked around in shock, to see himself on the beach in Ogygia. The broken table was still there, and so was his make-shift forge. He smiled, but it was mixed with nervousness. What if Calypso had decided she didn't like him anymore? Hephaestus appeared beside him. He looked uncomfortable, and little . . . _scared?_

"What?" Leo asked, making the god jump. "Afraid of her?" He was talking about Calypso, of course. The gods had promised to set her free, but they never got around to doing it. He supposed she might not be so nice to them.

"Well, son, you see -"

"LEO!" A voice cried out.

Leo whirled around, just in time to get tackled by Calypso. She flung her arms around him, nearly crushing his ribs. "Can't . . . breathe!" He choked. She loosened her arms, blushing profusely.

"I thought you would never come back." She smiled.

"You were wrong," Leo grinned back.

Calypso leaned forward and kissed him, and it was _so_ much better than the kiss on the magic raft. They didn't realize they clinging to each other until Hephaestus cleared his throat, looking highly affronted. Leo flushed even worse than Calypso, but that didn't mean he hadn't enjoyed it.

Unfortunately for Hephaestus, Calypso noticed him. She stomped over to him, pointing a finger in his face. "You were supposed to _let me go!"_ She snapped. "And you _didn't!_"

"I-uh -" But he was cut off again.

"This whole time, I was waiting. I would have helped in the giant war! I would have sided with the gods! But no, you had to wait around and keep me here! You swore on the river Styx!" She ranted.

Finally she stopped for breath and the god leapt on the time he had to speak. "You could have left! We took the barriers that . . . kept you in away."

Calypso stared at him, realization dawning on her face. "You mean, this _whole time,_ the barriers have been down, _and you never told me?_" Hephaestus was in now way endearing himself to the angry goddess.

Leo had had to step in and smooth it over before it turned into a full-on fight. He managed to calm the two gods down, and convince Calypso that his father was not _that_ bad. He didn't really care if she was angry at Hephaestus, all he wanted was to take Calypso away from this island. _  
_

It had been amazing when he had gotten her to leave, and they had strolled into the throne room of the gods. Poseidon was trying to tell Percy that Leo hadn't been abducted. Annabeth, as always, was arguing with her mother about Percy's usefulness. Jason stood awkwardly by his dad, and Piper was doing her best not to be noticed by Aphrodite. Frank and Hazel were still in shock, stumbling around while the idea that they were in Olympus fully sank in. Nico was with his dad in the shadows, watching everything play out quietly.

Calypso was clinging to his arm, practically terrified. It wasn't the gods she was afraid of, though. She was afraid that the other demigods that Leo was taking her to live with would not like her. Leo had smiled, how could they _not_ like Calypso?

Present:

Leo was snapped out of his memories by Calypso. She was pointing and crying out at something flying up to meet them. He looked down and saw another dragon soaring up into the clouds. He swallowed nervously, hoping he was right about who this dragon was. The other dragon came level with them, circling around, before rising above them and morphing into a teenage boy.

Frank landed behind Calypso, his eyes wide. "You have a dragon?" He gasped.

"Sure do, Frankie boy." Leo said, smirking because he knew it irritated Frank.

Frank hesitated, scowling. "You might want to land. The others might think you're a threat."

"I doubt it," Leo said, but began to descend anyway. Then his previous mean idea came back to him. "Hey amigo! Hold on really tight back there would you? Wouldn't want you to get aplanado!" He grabbed Calypso's hands and pulled them around his waist. "Hold on, okay?" He said a little more sincerely to her. She clasped her hands tightly as Leo patted Festus's side.

He grinned. "Why don't you take us down. Nice and fast!" Before he other two passengers could protest, Festus nose dived. A shriek escaped from Calypso and Frank cursed like Arion. They speed to the ground so fast, Leo though he face might fall off. Right before they hit the ground, Festus unfurled his wings and spread them out, slowing them to a glide over the earth. Then he landed.

He slid off of Festus, grinning like a mad man and stumbling around. Calypso practically fell off after him, giggling hysterically. Frank looked like he might be sick.

Leo sat down, dizzy. Calypso sat down next to him, equally shaken. "Never, ever, _ever _do that again!" She said.

He laughed. "Come on. That was fun, admit it!"

"Never!" Calypso said.

"You sure you don't want to do it just one more time?" He asked her.

"Maybe . . . never," Calypso smiled. Before Leo could complain she leaned closer and kissed him. It was amazing how fast Leo could forget about plummeting to his death. She pulled away, and he grinned.

Leo looked behind her and saw the other campers and magicians heading their way. He stood, still a little wobbly. He held out a hand for Calypso and helped her up. He walked next to Festus, half protective, half with pride. One of the magicians - Sadie Kane - ran ahead of the others. Her brother followed her, like he was afraid she might do something stupid.

Sadie gazed at the dragon. "Oh, forget the bloody pegasus. I want a ride on the dragon!"

Leo grinned, pleased that _someone_ was impressed. "His name is Festus."

Her brother frowned. "Your dragon is called happy? You ride on happy the dragon?"

Leo pointed a finger at Carter. "Hey! I already got beaten on that one by Jason."

The rest of the campers and magicians caught up and circled around Festus. Jason patted Festus's side. "Well, Leo. I'll give it to you: you've outdone yourself."

"'Course I have," Leo said.

"You aren't very humble," Carter noted.

"I'm completely humble. Humbleness is my middle name." Leo said, his smile getting bigger.

"Seriously?" Carter grumbled.

Then a shout rang out from the crowd. Three roman eagles were spotted flying in the sky, each carrying riders. The eagles descended and landed, letting Reyna, Annabeth and Hazel off. The three quickly made their way over. Annabeth quickly surveyed the situation and decided Sadie and Carter were of more importance.

"Are you the two leading magicians?" She asked.

Sadie nodded. "Technically Carter is pharaoh of the universe or something, but everyone knows that I'm really in charge."

Carter glared at her. "I'm Carter -"

"Kane," Annabeth finished. "And you must be Sadie. I'm Annabeth Chase." She turned to Sadie. "So what is going on? Percy tried to explain but . . . well let's just say he wasn't too clear."

Sadie snickered, but tried to relate to Annabeth what happened with the demons and Setne. Carter jumped in a took over for the parts Sadie wasn't sure about. "One thing is for sure," Carter said. "Setne and whoever in his league is up to no good."

Leo watched Annabeth purse her lips._ Uh-oh. Time for a long and comprehensible speech about absolutely nothing. _He sighed and waited for the blow. Instead, she simply said, "I don't know."

Leo gaped at her. "Did. She. Just. Say that?"

"Shut up, Leo," Annabeth snapped. "How can I know? Do we have any leads?"

Carter was all too happy to speak up. "We aren't sure yet. We'd have to go back to the 21st nome and do some scrying -"

"What is scrying?" Leo asked.

"- and look for any unusual magical disturbances." He finished.

Annabeth nodded. Leo was surprised on how fast she hit it off with the Egyptians. She was good at talking to people. "That's fine. Maybe we should send some of our campers through with you."

"Oh, me!" Leo said loudly, holding up his hand. "Pick me!"

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Perhaps me, Leo - don't say a word - and Reyna or Frank? Reyna and Frank are the two Praetors of 12th legion of Rome, so it seems right."

Reyna nodded. "Send Frank. He needs to get out more and prove himself."

Leo raised an eyebrow. "He's all the way across the country. What do you want him to do? Go to Africa?" He imagined Frank frolicking in the tall grass with the wildebeests and smirked.

Leo clapped his hands and got back on Festus. "So! We have a plan: you guys do you your crying or whatever -"

"Scrying!" Sadie interrupted.

"- yeah whatever- and then we head off in the Argo II to look for it!" He finished.

Annabeth shrugged. "Guess that kind of sums it up."

Sadie and Carter nodded. "Let us find Alyssa. She has to stone artifact we need to get back to the 21st nome." Without further words they turned and walked up the hill back into camp.

Annabeth glared meaningfully at Leo. "Don't you have anything you need to get ready? Perhaps you should put Festus away for now."

Leo scowled at her. "You know, Festus isn't an 'it'. I don't 'put him away', I take him home."

"Oh. Okay, whatever." She started up the hill. "Do you know where Percy is?"

"Eating. Duh."

"Of course."

* * *

**So what do you think? Good, okay, absolutely terrible? It felt pretty weak to me. **

**So I've been for getting to do disclaimers so here it goes...*shaking like Bilbo handing of the The Ring* All rights of the characters, ideas, blah blah blah goes to Rick Riordan. There, Happy? :D**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Here's the next chapter! And it record time, too. I really got a burst of inspiration during this chapter, so I hope it's better than the last ones. Enjoy!**

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CHAPTER FIVE

CARTER

For the record, I'll say that this has been one of the most confusing days OF MY LIFE. First the Greeks. Then the Romans. And now Felix is one of them! I can't hold it against him, but I was a little afraid to find out about the his father. I could tell from the way the other demigods shifted around when Felix was claimed by Boreas, he wasn't the best god out there. I could not help but wonder what the ice god did to make them look so angry. I am pretty sure Boreas sided with the bad guys in their giant war (yes, literal Giant War), and they were still a little hung up about it. I hope they didn't make Felix feel bad because of it, because he was a great kid.

Before I could press for answers, however, the huge dragon was spotted. It circled up in the sky, with gleaming bronze plates for scales. Frank had started running, and changed into a dragon himself to go check out the new intruder. I do not think I have ever been more shocked to see the big guy run off, and then transform, muscle and bone elongating and growing until his was an enormous fire-breathing dragon. Frank had circled above the metallic dragon for a few beats of his wings, and then had changed back into a human in mid-air, electing a gasp from the crowd of demigods and magicians. Luckily he landed on the bronze dragon, but it was at that moment the bronze dragon nose-dived.

There was much yelling and shrieking, from the crowd on land, and the dragon's passengers. As the hunk of metal had come closer, I could see Leo and his girlfriend, Calypso. Right before they became a massive pancake on the ground, the dragon had unfurled its tucked wings and gently glided to a landing spot. The dragon spread its wings and puffed it's chest out, like it was proud of its rather abrupting landing. The three riders had slipped off, tumbling to the ground and laughing hysterically.

Giant bronze dragon named Festus – as Leo called him – doesn't get much more crazy than that, right? When then the Romans came, flying on their ginormous eagles to give a little visit and tell of the attacks on their side of the country. And after _that_, Annabeth and I made plans for us to go back and get ready so we would not be pounded into the ground by whatever Setne had waiting for us.

Reyna, the Roman Praetor, looked like a wolf ready to pounce on her prey. She looked me up and down with a look that only a person who had lived among predetors could muster. I really feared where this girl had been raised. And then there was Annabeth. When I said 'Annabeth and I made plans', I really meant: 'Annabeth made plans' because the way that girl said it made me think she didn't want no for an answer, and I really did not want to get on her bad side. Seriously, who would have known a blonde could be so intimidating?

Now Sadie wants to kill me. I guess all blondes are scary.

So I had dragged Sadie away before she could further make a fool of herself and went to find Walt. I wasn't completely happy with the set up. I really didn't want Leo to come along. No offense, but the guy did NOT look like a person you entrusted missions to, what his bursting into fire business. Frank seemed levelheaded, and Annabeth, as I said earlier, was freaking scary. We found Walt talking with Nico, who apparently was the son of Hades, the death god. Figures they would get along. They were probably talking about their favorite spots in the underworld.

I pulled Walt away, and as we walked, I muttered to them, "So, what do you think?"

"About what?" Sadie asked, paying all of her attention to Walt.

I scowled. When will she learn to listen to me? "Come on! You know, the Greeks and Romans."

She tapped her chin lightly, her face frowning in a thoughful expression that I knew was not the least thoughtful. "What do I think? Hm, let me think, let me think . . . human."

There it was. I groaned loudly. "Besides that! I mean, do you think we can trust them?"

She shrugged. "They let us play capture-the-flag. They gave us weapons and armor, and trusted that we wouldn't 'accidentally' kill them." She made air quotes with her fingers. She really didn't seem to care, as long as she had Walt and she got her ride on Happy the dragon.

"I guess." I said halfheartedly as I called the rest of the magicians to me from the camp mess hall. Julian was talking to Percy. They all seemed to get along pretty well, but then again the pizza might have helped. The other joined around me, and I told them everything Reyna and Annabeth had said. We would be going to the 21st Nome, do some scrying, prepare for a battle if it came to that – which it _always_ did – and get rest before we left tomorrow.

I also admitted to them that we were taking some of the Greeks and Romans with us. I could tell everyone was a little nervous to let them into the 21st Nome, but the demigods had let us into their camp – granted we saved their lives – trusting we would try to kill any of them. I had heard one of the other campers talking about how Leo had lost it once with an eidolon possessing him. Apparently he had nearly blown up all of the Roman city in California with their massive trireme, the Argo II.

I prayed to the gods that he would not do that to our home. Of course, then there was Setne. I wondered what magician would be crazy enough to help Setne. They would have to be pretty stupid to help that good-for-nothing traitorous piece of . . . well insert any word here your want. I hated Setne for betraying me on board the Egyptian Queen, a boat my mother and father had own before me. He had nearly gotten me and Zia killed that day by out demonic captain, Bloodstained Blade.

I chose a few volunteers to stay behind at the Greek camp while Sadie and I were at the 21st Nome. Sadie and I, followed by the group of magicians returning, walked back over to where Annabeth was. I introduced her to Alyssa, who was holding the artifact we needed to transport back. I could tell there were hundreds of questions boiling under the surface of Annabeth's startling gray eyes, but she held them back. I was glad, because I really didn't feel like explaining transportation. It still gave me a headache.

Alyssa put the stone on the grassy ground, and began chanting over it. After a few minutes, a portal opened of made of swirling sand. Leo jumped back, alarmed. "You want us to go through _there?"_

Frank looked equally terrified. "It's sand." He said.

And Sadie calls _me_ Captain Obvious?

Sadie cleared her throat. "It's a portal. You just have to jump in. See?" She jumped backwards and fell into the swirling sand.

Leo lifted an eyebrow, but shrugged. "Seen worse," he said. Then he jumped through and disappeared into the sand.

Annabeth sighed. "Guess that leaves me no other choice."

Percy, who had followed us back here, leaned over and kissed her lightly. "Be careful Wise Girl."

"You too, seaweed brain." She smiled and hopped through the portal.

Percy frowned. "You know, that looks kind of fun. I'm going." Before I could protest, he leapt through and disappeared.

Then I shrugged and looked at Frank, who was hanging back. "Uh – okay. Guess I've been through worse." He took a deep breath and walked through the portal.

"Finally," I muttered. That Frank guy was like a huge ox: strong, fast, but not necessarily smart. I knew that it was a bit of a cruel thought – but that's what I thought. I jumped through, momentarily disorientated by the trip, but managed to clear my head when I arrived at the 21st Nome.

Only, the 21st Nome was under attack. Demons swept from the sky, attacking out defensive barriers. A few broke through, and as soon as those few made it through the tares the rest followed frantically. Chaos and destruction unleashed throughout the mansion as demons smashed windows and attacked the initiates. _My_ initiates. _My _friends. And now that I had been elected pharaoh or sorts, my _people._ I didn't really care that the Greeks were stumbling around, a bit confused. I summoned the crook and flail of the pharaoh, and joined the battle with a battle cry.

Immediately my Horus avatar flickered to life, lifting me off the ground and surrounding my in a holographic hawk warrior that shielded me from the demon's attacks. I swung the flail, and three demons that had little Shelby cornered went flying, slamming into a wall before dissolving into sand, leaving nothing more than hair-line cracks.

I yelled at Shelby to go into the library, which was sort of out 'safe house' during times like this. Then I locked eyes with Sadie, who had drawn her staff and wand from the Duat, and with Julian, who was summoning his avatar for the second time that day. Then we charged the front line of flying demons; I was swinging the crook and flail furiously, Julian was holding up good with his _khopesh_, and Sadie was shouting random spells.

Together, we drove the demons back. All was going well until an explosion rivaling a nuclear bomb hit me in my back, sending me flying forward and nearly tumbling off the balcony railing. I groaned, and my avatar started to fade. There was something strange about that explosion – like it was literally draining my life away, along with my magical energy.

I tried to get up, but my vision swam. There was something pulsating with pain on chest, but before I could even begin to worry about that, another demon flew at me, its curved sickle blade held up for the killing blow. For a few seconds I watched in numb shock as the demon drew closer and closer, slowing in arrogance as it realized it had fallen the great Carter Kane.

Gathering any last bits of energy I had left, I swung the flail and the surprised monster flew backwards and turned into a file of ash. I let my hand drop, and with horror realized the pain in my chest was from a wound that was gushing out blood. Stunned, I reached and touched it, my fingertips stained in red. The light started to dim, and the last thing I heard before going unconscious was Sadie's voice yelling out to me. And then it was black.

It was completely black. I was standing, completely whole, over a sea of blackness and empty thought. I tried to make any sense of it, but this was no ordinary _ba_ dream. I was in my normal, not-a-chicken state. I feeling of fear struck me deep inside: _what if I was dead?_ Sadie had said she had a _ren_ dream right before she nearly died when we were sinking in the depths of the Mediterranean sea, along with me and Bes, the dwarf god.

Then a voice echoed around me: "No, Carter Kane, eye of Horus, you are not dead."

I froze with utter, horror-stricken terror with I heard that voice. That voice that had cause me so much pain and misery, the reason for my parents' deaths; that cold, haunting voice that seemed to wrap me up in despair and a longing for the end of all light and things good.

"Apophis." I whispered. Than my fear turned to unconditional fury. I yelled, "Where are you? Show yourself, or are you too cowardly? Oh! That's not it! We defeated you with the EXECRATION spell." I yelled the spell's name louder to rub it in further. I knew the gods feared the very name of that particular spell. "You don't have a body anymore!"

A low, angry hiss echoed through the darkness. "Such powerful, arrogant words from one so near death. It is true, my body is not complete – YET." The last word sent a powerful blast through the empty cosmos and seemed to send a chill through my bones.

"That's impossible," I laughed. "You shouldn't even be here. You're dead. You're gone forever so stop denying it."

To my surprise, the snake laughed back. "Now it is your turn to be wrong, little hero. I will not explain myself to you, but . . ." Apophis's voice trailed off, and I thought I felt heat blow by my neck, as though the god of Chaos was breathing down my shoulder. "Ask the Greeks what their mother goddess, Gaea, did to the spirits seeking the destruction. Ask them if they _succeeded_ in vanquishing _all _of them." The snakes voice got lower, drawing out the words tantalizingly.

I closed my eyes, imagining the snake was right behind me. It felt like it, and it was very hard to stay courageous when the god of Chaos sounded like it was breathing on your neck, his will bent on evil and pure destruction.

"Let me show you something, little hero." The scene changed abruptly, as though the world had been ripped from under my feet.

Suddenly I was standing in a very different place. It was green and lush, like a rainforest, with staunching humidity and heat. A waterfall fell from the cliff-side, where vines dangled all the way to the bottom. It was a classic picture from the Amazon rainforest. I had, though, absolutely _no_ idea why Apophis was showing me this. Was he going to destroy it in my mind, just to show how powerful he was? Lame.

No, there was something else. This place was special. It hummed with magical energy, and when you looked closely, ignoring – what did the Greeks call it? - the Mist, it wasn't entirely normal. Soft glowing golden lights floated around aimlessly. Down in the lake that the waterfall thundered into, women with fish tails admired themselves in the reflection of the water, while singing eeriely to themselves.

I watched them, shocked for a few seconds. Mermaids? Now that was something new. I took a few cautious steps closer to the edge of the cliff, peering over the edge. This was definitely unusual, the amount of magical energy I felt radiating from the area was astronomical. Where those glowing yellow lights . . . fairies? This place was magical, it a magician's point of view, and a mystical point of view. It radiated pure, untouched innocence and beauty.

"Yes," the voice of Apophis hissed. "Truly remarkable, is it not?" The serpent lord chuckled to himself quietly. "I cannot wait to see this place fall to my influence. Look at it! All of this pure beauty, and soon this energy will be just enough for me to rise completely. All this power, right before my eyes."

I felt my anger surge again. "There is no way you will get away with this! No way! Even if what you say it true, and I _seriously_ doubt it, I, along with the help of my friends, WILL defeat you again." I was shaking with fury. I could not believe that after ALL we had had gone through to save this world, it might be in vain. "And I don't care if I have to do it over and over and over again! You will always fall, no matter how much you try, no matter what you do!"

Apophis laughed again. "_You?_ Stop me? Oh, little, insignificant, hopeless hero. You are not aware of how powerless you are." The serpents voice had lowered again, but this time it was so menacing that it raised the hairs on my arms and neck up.

I struggled to keep my confident, brave-to-a-fault spirit up, but it was getting harder and harder with every passing moment. It was like keeping the Horus avatar up on very little energy: nearly impossible. "If I am truly so insignificant, then why are you repeatedly calling me _hero?_" I asked quizzically.

Apophis's hissing voice got a little lower, sounding demented and synthesized. "You have not heard the rest of the prophecy yet? What a pity."

The world was ripped from under my feet again, but this time it was because the world was falling apart, dissolving into that sea of Chaos that the serpent god wanted so much. I watched as the world was torn apart, people screaming in terror as their lives were cut abrupt. I saw my home, my family fading into the eternal chaos. Despair began to creep on me. Then it completely faded away, replaced by nothing but darkness.

I thought that was it, but instead the world build itself back up again, and was destroyed. I saw everyone die in pain and fear again, over and over again. I wondered if this was how it was life for Zia. I moaned as the world was destroyed again, and I realized Apophis was trying to drive me insane. It was working. I collapsed to my knees, but when I looked down, I saw myself dissolving into the sea of chaos with the rest of the world.

I struggled to keep down my nausea as I was swept away into the darkness again, this time for good. There was no voices, no people, no nothing except for empty darkness. I put my hand in front of my face to look at it, but saw nothing. Either it was _so_ dark I could not see, or I simply was not there, and my soul was being held together by my sheer will. But even the will to survive will eventually give into despair, as I seemed to wander aimlessly for hours, shouting out into the fathomless void that had enveloped me in its cold embrace. I collapsed again, just as I heard a faint voice calling my name. It sounded just like . . .

"Sadie?" I called. "Sadie is that you?"

A bright light flashed to life, so startling I thought I might be blinded, and then my eyes – my real eyes – began to open slowly. I stared through the gray mist, wondering if I was dying. The mist cleared, and I found Sadie looked down at me tearfully. I moaned and she sat back, huffing with relief.

"Y-you!" She yelled. "If you ever, _ever_ terrify me like that again, I swear to the gods of Egypt . . . ugh, I'm so glad you're okay."

I stifled another moan, not wanting to worry anyone or sound weak. I tried to sit up, but Jaz was over in a flash, gingerly pushing my back down. "Don't you even think about getting up," Jaz commanded. "You're wounds are still bleeding pretty badly."

"Wounds?" Then I remembered the blood on my chest. "How did I get that?" I tried to distract my mind from the dream I'd just been force to watch continuously, because I felt tears threatening.

Sadie and Jaz exchanged worried looks. I didn't know what was going on in their heads, but they were both clearly afraid to tell me something. "Come on!" I insisted. "What is it?"

Jaz took a deep breath. "Carter, it was a curse." Before I could speak, she continued. "I have no idea what kind of curse it is. I don't know how to cure it, and its a bad one."

Fear caught in my throat. "W-what do you mean? What did it do?"

"What it _did_ isn't the problem," Jaz sighed. "What its _doing now_ is the major issue. It's draining your magical energy constantly, only leaving just enough to keep you from burning up. It's like you're chanting a spell endlessly, but stop just to give you enough power to go on. It's not healthy for you, Carter. We need to figure this out – now."

I wasn't sure what to say. "So, I can't do _anything _magical right now. If I do . . ." My voice trailed off. No one said it, but they were thinking it: I would burn up. Literally.

"So now what?" I asked angrily. "We need to find Setne. He is obviously the one behind this. He _has _to know the cure."

Sadie nodded. She still looked upset. "Okay. We've been showing the demigods around the mansion. They're ready to leave, although I think you need sometime to rest. You should take the rest of the today and tomorrow morning off. We'll leave in the afternoon."

I shook my head. "We leave first thing tomorrow morning. A few extra hours are not going to make a difference." I could tell she wanted to argue, but her voice died, which was unusual for Sadie. I wondered if my face was giving away too much of the horror I'd just witnessed in my dream. I needed to tell her about that, but just couldn't bring myself to do right now. It was too crazy. I couldn't lay the knowledge that the Chaos serpent might be coming back after all the pain we went through.

"Okay," Sadie said. "Deal. Let me help me get you to your room. Zia's waiting for you; she said she had a surprise for you."

I gulped, hardly able to contain my excitement. Even after all the time Zia and I had been dating, I still felt a twinge of nervousness. I got up, with the help of Sadie, and walked out of the infirmary, batting away a few floating lights as I went.

The Annabeth was pouring through the library, gaping at the architecture and reading the scrolls. Who would have known Annabeth, a the daughter of a Greek goddess, could read ancient Egyptian? Percy was showing off his son-of-the-sea god powers in the pool with Julian and a few other initiates, while Leo showed everyone how he could burst into flames. Frank had found home in battle: he was sparring two magicians while he whirled around them, changing shape almost constantly. They were quite a sight.

I walked to my room, where I saw Zia on the balcony, watching the horizon. She looked so beautiful, with her volcanic rock black hair now grown out long, and her tan skin contrasting the plain white T-shirt she wore. Even wearing the simplest things, she was astounding. She turned when she heard me coming and rushed over.

I straightened, realizing I'd been hunched over a little in pain. "I'm fine. How are you?" I asked.

She smiled and swept her bangs from her face. "I'm the one to be worried about!" She studied me for a few seconds, and then frowned. "Are you okay? Did you have a dream that bothered you?"

I felt a chill. How did she do that? It was like she could peer into my mind. "Uh. I-it was nothing." I tried to wave it aside, but I knew she was not going to take 'no' for an answer.

"Carter, tell me. I know it is bothering you a lot." She glared at me. "If you tell me, I'll give this gift I got you, and I promise you'll love it."

I sighed. "Okay, but you have to _promise_ you will tell no one. Not Sadie, not Walt, not even Amos."

She nodded, and I told her about my dream. I explained what Apophis has said, the magical area in the rainforest. She frowned when I told her about the rainforest. "I've heard of a place like that. It's legendary. If it really does exist . . . Carter we need to check that out soon."

"I agree," I said. "But for now we need to pin-point Setne. It will be hard, because I'm sure he's got all sorts of barriers to block peering eyes, but not impossible."

She looked a little disappointed. "Okay, but if this place really does exist, then we it is imperative that we look for it and make sure it remains untouched."

"Okay." I said. We had sat down on bed while I was telling my story. I went to get up, but Zia called me back.

"Carter, I know there's more. You haven't told me everything." Yep. She definitely could read my mind.

"I-I don't really want to talk about it right now," I said. "It was pretty bad. I promise I'll tell you, but not right now."

She looked sympathetic. I knew she could relate to having terrible dreams, after being but in a watery stasis but the old Chief Lector, Iskandar. for awhile to hide her from Apophis. She still had nightmares from her experience, but she was getting better. At least I hadn't been stuck in the dream for months without end.

I started to walk towards the door, but then a flash of pain nearly doubled me over, running from my chest to my stomach. "What is wrong with my chest today?" I snapped. I went to the mirror and began unbuttoning my shirt.

"Carter, I wouldn't -" Zia started, but it was too late. I saw it.

There was a symbol – the ankh of life – cut into my skin. It was golden where the cuts were, and the skin around it was red and irritated. I stumbed back. "W-what is this?"

Zia looked upset. "It's the curse that was left behind. That the reason we can't figure out how to cure it. It's like Walt's curse . . . it was literally woven into your DNA after it was cast. There is no cure, Carter."

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**Ohh, long chapter! Like I said, burst of inspiration. Let me know how I'm doing in the reviews! I really really love hearing from you guys, good or bad. The way I look at is at least you read it if there is something to pick at. Let me know who you whose POV you want next! The most comments for that one person wins, yeah? **

**:)**


	6. Chapter 6

**ANNABETH **

**CHAPTER 6**

Any other person who had stepped into the chaos that reigned at the 21st Nome would have curled into a ball and starting weeping. But of course, being the daughter of the goddess of wisdom, I was no average person. As soon as I understood who the threat was—which wasn't hard, it's not really possible to miss a demon with an ax sprouting from its shoulders—I made myself useful. That means I ran around incited the fear of celestial bronze into the monsters. I was surprised and distictly proud how easily the we and the Egyptian magicians fought together in the face of chaos. It was if we'd been fighting for years in league with each other.

Percy, as always, was generally reeking havoc as he whirled around, sending blasts of water from the pool that was on the balcony—was that a crocodile in the pool? I didn't have time to worry about that as another demon flew at me, its twin snake heads hissing with a certain yearning for my blood. I side-stepped smoothly and with one swipe the snake-demon was stumbling around headless before dissolving into sand. Another demon came at me from behind, and then two more from my sides, charging with screw-driver heads and another snakey head. I grimaced, preparing myself for a beating before getting taken down by sheer number.

WHOOM! A wave of blue-gray water enveloped the demons to my left and behind me, so it was no problem taking out the last demon, who was obviously too stupid to see that his abush had just been sent to Tartarus. I stabbed the demon, and then spun around. What Percy was doing was truly a feat. He was standing in the middle of a crowd of demons—either they really wanted an autograph or they were bent to kill—and was holding them off with no problem, while keeping an enormous hurricane going around him. If that wasn't enough, there were two water-tornadoes that were sucking up monsters leaving nothing but wet sand behind.

I resisted a laugh. Seaweed Brain, I thought. He probably could have taken the whole army of demons on himself, by the looks of that hurricane and the tornadoes that were rapidly getting stronger. Then something caught my eye. Carter and Sadie, along with another magician kid—Julian—were fighting off their own mini-army of monster and were doing pretty well. Unfortunately, that is when I noticed the demon flying behind Carter, holding a glowing fist of black energy. The demon was different than the rest, clothed in black robes with silvery runes scrawled out, shimmering and glowing dangerously. An aura of down-right evil was emanating from this guy. It take someone with my intellect to figure that out.

"Carter!" I yelled over the fray. "Demon behind you!"

Carter turned, just in time to get a globe of black energy lobbed into his chest and explode. He was thrown backwards, and hit the railing hard, sliding down in a daze. I could tell he was still in semi-consciousness. I sprinted across the balcony and knelt down. I was about to pull out some ambrosia, but hesitated. What he burned up? He wasn't a demigod. I was about to abandon the idea and start binding his wound when a cool, familiar voice whispered into my mind: Go on, he will be find. The blood of the pharaohs is particularly predominate in him. He comes from a line of magicians, hosts, and demigods. It was Athena.

I didn't wait another second. I poured some necter in his mouth, just as he fell unconscious. The large, bleeding wound on his chest looked frightening, but I knew from experience that it wasn't as bad as it seemed. I scanned the chaos around me and saw a blonde girl bound by, sending bursts of magic ar random monsters. It wasn't Sadie. I suddenly remembered. "Jaz!" I yelled. "Jaz, over here! Carter needs help!" Jaz was the healer who I had been introduced to earlier today. After the Capture-the-Flag game, she had help heal some of the minor injuries that came hand-in-hand with Camp Half-Blood's trademark game. She was really good.

She ran over to us, as an expolsion of magic flying overhead, and bits of wall and balcony railing shattering into the air. Smoke filled the air, so thick it nearly choked me. Jaz knelt by Carter, frowning anxiously. "We need to get him to the infirmary. There's something not right with this wound."

I wasn't sure what that meant, but I didn't want to argue. I helped her carry Carter across the balcony, into the large mansion and to the infirmary. Little light floated around, and scattered when we walked in. As we laid Carter, still moaning pitifully, on the cot another explosion shook the mansion. Jaz started chanting over Carter, while simultaneously fumbling through her bad and pulling out potions and salves. She grabbed a bowl and started mixing some salves together, and then waved her hand in the air. Floating words appeared in electric blue: GO FIND ZIA. I nodded and left without a word, although I had no idea who this Zia was.

I went back outside, and ran into a girl with long glossy black hair, almond-shaped amber eyes that were somewhere between beautiful and scary, and tan skin. For a second I though she was Reyna, but then got over it quickly. This was no time for comparisons. "I need someone called Zia! Do know where this person is?"

The dark-hair Arabic-looking girl scowled. "I am Zia. What do you want?"

I sighed with relief. "Jaz needs you in the infirmary!"

Zia frowned. "There is an invasion on the 21st Nome, and the demons are no letting up. I am needed out here."

I scowled, my face equally as fierce. "Carter is injured. Jaz seems really worried about his wound." Zia lost her hard expression and ran into the mansion. Carter and Zia are a couple, she thought. There was no doubting it, Zia's body language was clear.

Another magic-ball fell from the sky, but this time was aimed right at me. I dove out of the way, and to my horror saw the same demon that had hurt Carter charging another burst of dark energy at Percy. I cried a warning to Percy and ran to them. Just as Carter had, Percy turned to see the demon throw the sphere into his chest. I let a yell of fear and anger. Never have I felt so useless. I ran to the demon, my bronze knife glinting in the sunlight.

As Percy fell, I assumed his hurricane and tornadoes would dissipate, as they always did. Instead they did the opposite, exploding with such force that it flew over the whole mansion, momentarily submerging all of the humans and demons outside the mansion to water. When the water fell, the only thing left of the monster that were attacking was sand strewn across the balcony. I didn't pay any attention to this though, all I saw was the agony that was written clear on Percy's face. He crumpled, almost hitting the pavement, but I managed to catch him. There was a jagged bleeding wound across his chest and stomach. He was loosing blood quickly, but I knew I wasn't going anywhere with that demon floating about us.

The demon that was casting random curses was still there, levitating in the air. It was looking over us haughtily, even though its little invasion had been destroyed. I watched black charge up in his hands. I stood, ready to gut it without mercy, but stopped short. This was no ordinary monster. Its features were dull pale violet-gray, with spidery shadows like tattoos spiraling across its face. Its eyes glowed luminous green, and instead of having white corneas, they were blood-red. Its hair was shaggy black, with streaks of red appearing randomly. It wore black robes, with silvery symbols glinting in the setting sun.

Just when I though I couldn't get more surprised, the demon spoke. "The son of Poseidon, a formidable enemy, I'll admit." The demon started to fade, but left us with one more parting comment. "Though formidable no more." With that he lobbed his last two black energy spheres and disappeared.

Time seemed to slow down. I could see the spheres and I could tell where their trajectory was going. "Leo!" I yelled, taking advantage of the slow-time thing that happens to most demigods before disaster strikes. Leo looked up, and yelped, diving out of the way. He was hit, but instead of being hit smack in the chest like Carter and Percy, it struck his arm.

He crumpled to the ground, staring at his bleeding arm in shock. "What. Was. That?" He asked slowly and deliberately.

I just shook my head, unable to find words. Then Percy groaned and brought me back to reality. "Percy!" I gasped. "You need a healer."

It didn't take long to find the ambrosia and necter we had packed for emergencies—emergencies follow us demigods everywhere we go. Percy sat up, still groaning. At first I didn't notice Leo's look of horror, but when I did my heart nearly stopped.

His wound was almost healed, thanks to the godly food we fed him, but where the scabbing skin should have been was thick lines of black. I tried to suppress my fear. The lines looked a lot like the tattoos on the demon who had cast the spell in the first place. "What is this?" He asked, glaring at his arm. "I mean, tattoos are cool and all, but seriously? Does that guy have no imagination? Wouldn't a dragon look cooler?"

I knew for experience that Leo was acting like this because of immaturity. He was in shock, and was trying to laugh it off with jokes. It was his defense mechanism. "I don't know what they are," I said. "But Percy has the same thing, and think Carter does as well."

Percy frowned. "Leo's right. This guy has no imagination."

I scowled. "Percy, I know you're just trying to lighted the atmosphere, but this is important. We need to know what these are."

"That's great," Percy said. "So what should we do? Stop by Olympus and demand them to answer our questions?"

I sighed. "No, but I think we might want to get Rachel over here. She might be able to see something useful for us."

He shrugged. "Worth a shot."

..

****^I^****

We had to wait a few hours before anyone at the 21st Nome felt up to opening a portal for Rachel Dare. After the attack, most of the magicians had felt "unusually drained" as they put it. There was definitely something going on—something that both of our sides were clueless about. But finally, a swirling portal of sand opened for the Oracle of Delphi, and Rachel made her show. When she came through, the harpy Ella followed her closely from behind. I could hear Sadie groan. "Not her! Why did the chicken-lady come?"

I was surprised that Sadie knew about Ella. "She's got a photographic memory, and at one point she read the Sibylline scroll, books which were believe to have hundreds of prophecies in them. She's very smart and invaluable."

Sadie scowled, but nodded knowingly. "She came here earlier and started spouting out random rhyming lines. Something about a child of death or whatever. I don't remember."

Ella perked up at the mention of 'the child of death'. She ruffled her feathers and started to speak in a sing-song voice:

_"The child of death will weave the cage,_

_fire and magic shall release its rage,_

_help from the far west will come,_

_and the children of the gods divided succumb."_

She stopped speaking and cleaned her feathers, looking down-right pleased with herself.

I looked at Rachel Dare, who was furrowing her brow. "What do you think?" I asked.

Before she could reply, Sadie butted in. "I don't know about you, but that sounds a lot like gibberish to me."

Rachel scowled. "It's far from 'gibberish,' as you call it. This is definitely a prophecy—but it's incomplete."

I blinked with surprise. "That's a pretty long prophecy, then. I don't think I've seen a prophecy longer than six lines, maybe."

"There's something wrong with the prophecy, though." She frowned. "I think the version Ella read was tampered with or something, because what I'm sensing is different." Rachel swayed, her eyes turning luminous green and mist pouring from her mouth. I held my breath. She was about to give a prophecy.

Sadie let out a strangled squeak-gasp and backed away from Rachel as she spoke like there was hundreds of overlapping snake voices talking through her.

_"The child of death will become the cage_

_Fire and magic combined will rage_

_Unexpected help from the west will come_

_Children of the gods divided succumb"_

I perked up, knowing that this next part would be the part of the prophecy that was cut out of the sibylline books before Ella could get to them.

_"Those to follow light beware the dark_

_Enemies of the past leave the mark_

_The corruption of chaos will come slow_

_But seeds of evil it will quickly sow"_

There was a moment of silence at the words sank in. It was the longest prophecy I had ever run into so far, and perhaps one of the scariest, too. Rachel picked herself up off of the ground shakily. "Well. That was a mouthful, you think?"

Sadie gave a nervous half-laugh. "Uh, this might sound stupid but . . ."

"What?" Rachel asked.

"Do you always have creepy snakey voices coming out of you?" Sadie asked it with all sincerity.

Rachel sighed. "No, I don't. Only when important prophecies need to be told. Like this one."

I held up my hands. "Okay, Rachel's performance is not important right now. We need to be trying to decipher the prophecy. This will give a significant advantage in the future."

Leo, who had had his arm bandaged and was acting unusually quiet, suddenly spoke up. "Well, I'm guessing Nico de Angelo is going to take a pretty large part in this quest. He is the only son of Hades out there."

I nodded. "Yeah. Magic and fire combined rage, Leo, think the fire has anything to do with you?"

He hesitated. "I-I don't know. The fire thing has gotten much hard, no thanks to the black curses on my arm. Luckily I'm still fire-proof, but if you guys want any Leo-Burgers on this quest then it will be a little harder."

I frowned, a stab of worry shooting through me. "How is Percy?"

"Pretty much the same." Leo said. "He can breath underwater still, and now his power above and below water are night and day with difference. He has to be in the water now to any large-scale stuff."

I scowled. Percy was going to hate that. I knew he relied a lot on his son of Poseidon powers to get along with his everyday demigod monster-fighting needs. Of course, on the bright side, he would have no excuse not to make sure his sword-fighting was top-notch now. Going to rub that in, I though with a wry smile.

"Okay," I said. "Well, what else?"

Sadie twirled her purple-streaked blonde hair. "Well, there will definitely be problems with chaos. We'll want to use a little magic as possible. I guess that means Leo's flying trireme won't be such a bad idea after all."

"Supreme-Commander Leo approves of your statement," Leo said with his trademark wild grin.

I nodded in agreement. "That's fine. I'm going to send an Iris Message to Chiron and tell him about our predicament and plans."

Leo scowled suddenly. "Wait. I need to get back to the Argo II before tomorrow. I really need to make sure there aren't any technical problems."

I raised an eyebrow. "How do you expect to back to camp before tomorrow?"

Leo grinned, and held up a huge orange plastic whistle that he'd snatched from his enchanted tool belt. "I'll call Festus, and we'll be back at camp in no time. In fact, you don't even have to IM Chiron. I'll tell him when I get there." With that, he blew the whistle loudly. Everyone within earshot—the whole mansion and everyone in a one-hundred mile radius—cringed.

I expected to be waiting for a while, but to my surprise a large bronze-plated dragon reared up from the side of the balcony, roaring triumphantly. It gracefully glided down, the colorful sunset colors glinting off Festus's metallic hide. The dragon landed, looked around at the demigods and magicians as if to say: yeah I'm the best and you know it! Leo must be proud.

"Without further ado," Leo proclaimed loudly. "See ya!" He clambered onto Festus's back and waved at us. Before I could even open my mouth to speak, Festus had beat his wings down and was ascending into the sky at rates that would terrify the average person. Of course, you couldn't really even compare Leo to the average demigod.

He let out whoop, and Festus mirrored him by sending a plume of flames high into the air. I watched as Leo, happier than I'd ever seen him, fly away on his dragon. It was amazing how much he loved his mechanical toys. He was truly a son of Hephaestus.

I was immediately in love with the 21st Nome. The library was very tastefully set up, and the architecture was amazing. I found myself pouring over the details and thinking: I should have added this in Olympus! I also found myself immersed in the scrolls that dominated the library. Why would you learn how to read ancient Egyptian, you ask? Well, if you were to—oh, I don't know—find out that Greeks and Romans were the only ones with real, live gods, then it might be great the broaden your horizons with knowledge.

I had briefly gone over ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs with my father a few years back, so it was rusty, but I managed to pick out some random lines. Mostly just random lines of ingredients for potions and spells. Then I found a scroll depicting the five main Egyptian gods: Horus, Isis, Osiris, Set, and Nephthys. There was also a small part about a god called Apophis, the chaos serpent. It wasn't very descriptive, though, and I couldn't really get a good look on what it was about.

I left the library, just in time to find Carter storming down the staircase. It surprised me a little, because Carter didn't really seem like the type of person to loose his temper. He stopped in front of Saide and glowered at her. I came closer. By the looks on the sibling's face, they were about to get in a fight. I figured it might be a good act of diplomacy to keep a civil war from breaking out in the 21st Nome.

"You didn't tell me I was cursed," I heard Carter hiss so the other kids couldn't hear them. Percy was still messing around in the pool with the other kids. "What am I supposed to do? How can I fight Apo—whoever is doing this when I can't use my power to the fullest extent?"

Sadie wasn't a fool. "Did you almost say Apophis?"

"I-I had a dream . . . I really do not want to talk about it right now, Sadie. I promise I'll fill you in when I'm up to it." He was practically begging her with his eyes. I didn't have to have years of experience reading body language and facial expressions to know that whatever he'd seen disturbed him a lot.

Sadie must have saw it as well, because her features softened. "Alright, Carter. When you've pieced it together more, tell me. I'm not blind you know. I can tell it bothered you."

Carter nodded. "Thanks, sis." He walked outside to enjoy the sunset. I followed, more than slightly curious about the topic of Apophis.

I cornered Sadie on the balcony. "I was reading a scroll about the main five gods—you know—Osiris, Set, Horus, Nephthys, and Isis? Well, there some other brief stories as well. Some about Ra, others about Ptah, but there was very little concerning the god Apophis, the chaos snake."

Sadie scowled. "There, you've got it: the chaos snake. There's not much fine detail about that snake. Just that he's evil and horrible. We explained to you how he nearly took over the world just earlier today."

I drew a blank. "I wasn't there when you showed up and saved camp—thanks, by the way. I came after, remember?"

Sadie nodded. "Oh, yeah! That's right. Well, Apophis tried to take over the world last year, but we destroyed him."

I arched an eyebrow. "Destroyed him? From what I've gathered, you can never truly destroy anything in the Egyptian world. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed."

"Yeah, yeah," Sadie waved her hand dismissively. "We all have nightmare about Apophis. It's . . . It's expected when you have something at such a large scale as Apophis thrust upon you."

I shuddered. "Tell me about it." I still had nightmares about the titans, not to mention Gaea and her army of evil giants. "What are we going to do about Percy, Leo and Carter? There has to be a way to get rid of the curse."

Sadie pursed her lips. "The only person who'd know how to reverse it would be the person who placed it on them."

"That demon." I remembered. "That was no normal demon. I've seen a lot of things, trust me, but I have never seen anything like that. It was . . . I don't know. Tortured? The thing was anguished, yet pleased. Like there was internal conflict."

"What are you saying?" Sadie asked curiously.

"I think we should try to talk to it first. It would be our only way of getting a cure for the boys." I said. "And I really just have an instinct that that thing isn't our battle. It has its own battle."

Sadie raised an eyebrow. "You're very perceptive."

I sighed. "You have to be, when you're a demigod. You never know when a "mortal" is going to suddenly change into a monster and try to kill you."

"Got that feeling mastered," she muttered.

The sun set slowly, finally dipping below the horizon. The moon rose up, high and proud in the sky. We demigods turned in early and passed out in our beds. Before I slipped into my room, Percy bounded over and kissed me goodnight. I smiled, perhaps a little too gleeful, and returned the favor with a kiss. Then I opened the door, walked across the room, and collapsed into my bed. I pondering using the strange pillow, and then abandoned the idea and threw it off the bed. I folded my arms under my head and sighed with relief. I didn't even bother to tuck myself in before falling asleep.

What's a demigod without dreams, I ask you? Of course, the dreams came to me. The same ones as ever. I'd been plagued with them for awhile now, but hadn't said a word. I didn't want to worry anyone about my freakish dooms-day saying visions of mass-destruction. I was hoping for maybe just one night without the dreams, but I had no such luck.

First, I was standing on a mountain, the world seemed to be crumbling into chaos as fires and explosions erupted wherever I looked. A voice hissed in my mind: Yesss. You sssee? There isss no sstopping thisss. No way you can run away again. You will watch all of your friends die. The last word echoed dramatically before fading out. This was perhaps the worst dream I'd had. The screams of millions as they died surrounded me. Why was I being shown this? Was is not enough to save the world twice?

I closed my eyes, trying to block out the images. "Annabeth," a voice jolted me from behind. I opened my eyes, and saw Tartarus. For a moment panic closed my throat up. Everything looked real, from the blood-red ceiling-sky, to the pulsating heart-like thing in the center of Tartarus. Then I remembered it was only a dream. This is only a dream. Only a dream. I chanted it in my head as I turned around, but no amount of chanting could stop the sharp intake of breath I gave.

It was Percy. He was on his knees, a blade impaled through his stomach. How did this happen? Usually when I had nightmares about the Pit, it was things that had actually happened. Percy never got stabbed. He was doubled over, pain raking across his paled features. There was blood on his heads. I tried to run to him, but feet seemed to be glued to the ground. He called out to me again, but the image began to blur. He mouthed, I'm sorry. I tried to call out to him, but my mouth seemed to sealed shut now.

"Know you see why it is hopeless? Every. Single. One of you have weaknesses. Can you move on in a war if Perseus Jackson was taken from you? Could Jason Grace continue if Piper McLean was killed? What if poor Leo Valdez lost his goddess to a fire, like his mother? Wouldn't that just be perfect?" The same voice from earlier tortured my mind. "The gods know Percy Jackson would never move on if you died."

I closed my eyes again. "I am not opening my eyes until it is morning and I wake up." The snake voice hissed a soft laugh, and faded. I felt my sub-conscious mind relax, and I fell into real sleep, unhindered by pesky dreams.

It was wonderful to have some bliss before a whole new journey began.

**A/N: New chapter! Took forever on this one, so I didn't take any extra time to edit and so on...I hope there aren't too many grammar errors. I hope you guys enjoyed this!**


	7. Chapter 7

**SADIE**

**CHAPTER 7**

Surprise!

I slept relatively well that night. I know, while everyone else was having doom-saying nightmares, I was snuggled in my bed peacefully. Who would have thought? I did have some random dreams, but I must stress the word 'random'. The scariest one was of a kid with curly reddish-brown hair and green eyes turn into a demon. The dream was mute, thankfully, or I would have heard him yelling in pain as he changed. That kind of freaked me out, but if that didn't put a damper in your day—dream, whatever—what would?

Then I saw some scarecrow kid chanting in a corner. He was chained to the wall, his wrists bleeding. His face was pale, and his blonde hair was matted and dirty. There was anger burning in his eyes, though, as a man stood over him. I couldn't see his face, but his silhouette betrayed a lithe man, not big, but definitely fast. The scarecrow kid was snapping something at him, before the other man broke his chains. Then the dreams ended. Pretty strange, yeah?

Despite for those few seconds of disturb, I was chipper in the morning. That ended as soon as I saw Carter. He looked terrible, as though he hadn't slept the whole night, and then was forced to battle another god. I was afraid he was going to be sick. His whole face was a bit blue, like dad was finally starting to come out in him. He had bags under his eyes and pushed his foot around his plate idly. His eyelids drooped, and his brown eyes were dull. Zia was sitting next to him, worry etched into her features. Amos was on his other side, speaking in a low voice, nearly as pale as Carter, but from worry. I was hoping that Carter just had a bad night, but then he lurched forward, groaning loudly in agony.

I abandoned the buffet table and ran to him. "Carter? Carter! What's wrong?!"

He slowly straightened, taking deep breaths. "I'm fine," he said in a tight voice that said the exact opposite.

"Rubbish," I snapped. "What wrong? Is it that curse?"

"Yes!" He gasped. "I-I think . . . I don't know. I'm afraid, Sadie. This is bad. It needs to be taken care of, _now." _

My face tightened with hate. Hate at that demon who was the cause for my brother's pain. I'd lost my mum when I was only six, and then my dad was forced to leave me with by gran and gramps, which was okay, but Carter got to go with dad. Finally, on one of the few days I get to see him, dad dies and becomes Osiris, god of the dead. My life goes steadily down-hill from there, getting practically booted out by my grandparents, fighting monster, gods, and saving the world. But now Carter was hurt. That was one thing that would make me snap. _No one,_ I repeat, _no one_ hurts my brother. Call it sisterly protectiveness or whatever.

"We are going to find that stupid piece of—" I cut myself off before I said something bad. I took a deep breath, "that demon, and freaking beat the crap out of it, and then get the cure, and maybe beat it a little more for fun."

Zia had an angry fire in her eyes that made me afraid she'd start lobbing fire-balls again, like how she did before she became to eye of Ra. Part of me screamed: _dunk! _

Thankfully, she only nodded. "I agree. This demon will regret the day he heard the name Kane and messed with the 21st Nome."

Carter gave a crooked smile through his pain. "I agree. I know _I_ want to kill it."

The stormy-eyed girl named Annabeth walked over. "Yes. No one hurts my Seaweed Brain."

I grinned. "_Seaweed brain?_ That is great. Well, Carter - or chicken man, as I call him - we have to find this thing. When do we leave."

Carter nodded. Straight to business—he needed it. "As soon as the demigods are ready to leave."

Annabeth pursed her lips. "I think we're ready. We are kind of trained to be ready on a moment's notice. Percy's having it rough, but water helps. He's practically living in the swimming pool."

We all looked over, and true to her words, Percy was up to his chest in the pool, with that lopsided grin of his, playing with Philip of Macedonia. He was pointing his finger at random things—statues of Ra, Khufu the baboon–that the other magicians told him to, and sending jet-blasts of water at them. It was like some kind of weird target practice. I rolled my eyes, realizing how much the name _Seaweed Brain_ fit him.

Annabeth's eyes widened as if something had struck her. "Oh no, Leo was hit too! I wonder how he's feeling."

I didn't have trouble remembering Leo Valdez, the guy who was always bursting into flames. I snickered inwardly. _Boy on Fire,_ I thought. "So, do you guys have nicknames? I mean, Carter is Chicken Man, as I said. Walt is Death boy. Felix is . . . Felix is Penguin boy. He likes his nickname."

Annabeth smiled. "Well, Percy's Seaweed Brain. Leo's Repair boy. There's a boy named Nico di Angelo, who we call Death Breath, he's the son of Hades. Frank is beast."

Zia gave an exasperated groan. "This is all very interesting, but we need to leave! Carter is in pain, and so is your boyfriend, even if he's still acting like a moron."

Annabeth shrugged. "Seaweed brain," she reminded us.

"Okay, fine." Zia huffed. "Where is Valdez and his "monster-destroying ship" as he calls it?"

I groaned with her. "I don't know, but he'd better hurry up and get over here." I looked around at our initiates. They were either grinning, or looking incredibly confused. "You know, I think it might be best if we give a formal presentation of what you guys are and where you come from." I said.

Carter looked at me liked I'd turned into that Push-me-pull-you snake we'd encountered in Russia when hunting down deadly scrolls the revive Ra. I shuddered at the memory, remembering Ra when he was senile. _Cookies! Zebras! Weasels!_

"What?" I asked.

"_You? _Ask for a _formal presentation?"_ He obviously found the idea quite hilarious. I almost forgot the fact he was hurt and turned him into a banana slug, but it was right then when a familiar voice behind me spoke. It made me cringe.

"Well, well! Carter, my boy, you aren't looking so well!"

"Setne!" I growled, spinning around furiously. "I will personally feed your heart to Ammit the Devourer myself!"

The beaky, rude, mafia-dressed ghost held up his hands in mock surrender. "Sadie, doll! I'm hurt! Aren't you happy to see your guide?"

"First of all, DO NOT CALL ME DOLL! Second, I'll be happy to trample your spirit in the court of my father, while being judged for all the harm you've managed to do over the last several _millennium_._" _ I could barely restrain myself. "WHO is helping you? What idiot is helping you with the spells you're working?"

He laughed, "Oh let's see. Shall I tell you? Hm . . . No. Let's just say, you'll never guess who."

I wanted to rip at my hair. "What are you doing here? Go dig some holes with your nose!" I hope that stung. He had a beak-like hooked nose, sort of like a shovel, and it was rather large for his head. "And then stay in your hole."

Setne scowled slightly, but the scowl was quickly replaced with his used-cars-sells man grin. "I'm just seeing how Carter and the demigods are fairing. How you feeling Carter? That curse hurt yet?"

I opened my mouth to yell at him, but Carter beat me to it. Well, that was a first. "Oh, just shut up Setne or tell us why you're here."

"I'm just here to brag. Oh, here comes the son of the sea god!" Setne grinned at Percy walked over, a glowing bronze sword—Riptide, he'd called it earlier—in his hand. There was a murderous look on his face that made even me, Sadie Kane the Great, want to shirk away.

Setne's smile died a few molars, but didn't disappear completely. "Who are you?" Percy snapped. "What do you want? Why did you attack last night? What is that demon-snake thing you were talking to in my dream?"

I felt as if someone had sucker-punched me in the gut. _Demon-snake thing?_ Could that be . . . Apophis? The idea was so terrifying, that I felt paralyzed. But the scary thing was: it made sense. My dream, the world dissolving into chaos, that hissing voice that surrounded me. It all fit in. I couldn't contain it anymore. "ARE YOU REVIVING APOPHIS?!" I roared.

Carter looked at me, surprise on his face. The weird thing: it didn't look like the _oh-my-gods-snakey-coming-back? t_ype of surprise. It was more of the _oh-my-gods-I-was-right_ type of look. That confirmed it. Carter had been having dreams about Apophis coming back.

The ghost was backing away, fading, but then another voice yelled. "Answer her, by the command of the Ghost King!"

I whirled, and a thin, deathly pale boy with shaggy raven black hair and dark brown eyes that burned with a kind of madness. He wore a black aviators jacket over a black T-shirt, with dark jeans and thick black combat boots. There was a silver scull ring on his hand, which he twisted and turned into a long sword with a blade the color of night. The stranger thing? The shadows seemed to cling to him, like they were reaching out and bending around him. An aura of death hung in the air around him, leaving me with a feeling like a dagger dragging up my spine. I remembered meeting Anubis, god of the dead, and this kid was scarier.

I watched Setne's eyes widen in utter terror. "M-m-master! I-I-I'm just going to go." With that he faded away.

The dark boy yelled, "No!" But Setne was gone, ran away like a coward. The boy growled angrily. "That is disgraceful, an escaped soul from my father's realm."

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "Everyone, this is Nico di Angelo, the son of Hades."

"God of the underworld and death," Carter muttered.

I gulped. And I thought Anubis was gloomy? Ha! The god of funerals had nothing on the son of death! A thought struck me: the son of death. The prophecy. I remembered the demigods talking about it earlier, but know I realized just how much Nico fit the lines of the prophecy. He looked very much like a child of death. _Child of death will be the cage?_ I wondered what that meant. Somehow Setne, Apophis, that scarecrow guy from my dream, and Nico di Angelo were tied together. If only I could figure out how.

I was about to speak, when I found myself interrupted for the third time that day. That was getting annoying. What was it? International Interrupt-Sadie-Kane-Day? The sound of an explosion shook the air, and sent every magician and demigod shooting to their feet. There was a huge Greek trireme in the sky, aerial oars rowing through empty air, the bronze metal glowing slightly. There was a bronze dragon figure-head on the the ship that seemed to be looking at me. There were billowing white sails, with a message on them: _WUSSUP PEOPLE?_ I could see Leo manning the ship, grinning like a madman and waving.

The _Argo II _descended, and Leo ran down the gang-plank, followed by two other demigods—Piper and Jason, I guessed. Leo stopped in front of us, his crazy grin still on his face. But I immediately knew that there was something wrong. His face had the same gray hue as Carter and Percy, as though the curse was changing their skin color. He had deep bags, and despite the smile he had plastered to his face, I could tell he was highly fatigued. He was wearing the same outfit as last night: an army fatigue jacket, cargo pants, his magical toolbelt, and boots.

"How's it going?" He asked. "Me? I'm exhausted. The _Argo II _had more stuff to be fixed than I previously thought. But Supreme-Commander Leo has it all done up and ready for take off. So have we dealt out who is going?" his nose burst into flames, and he batted it out like he might swipe at a fly.

He said this all in one breath. I glanced at Carter, but he was wincing and motioned for me to take over. Typical. "Well, Carter and I are definitely going. I wouldn't mind Walt coming along, and I think Annabeth and Percy are coming, and you three." I waved at Leo, Jason and Piper. "Nico needs to come, too."

Leo scowled. "Whoa, wait. Time out." He made a time out motion with his hands. "There are only eight rooms. It doesn't take an engineer like me to know that you pointed out nine people."

Walt frowned. "I really want to come, but I personally think Nico di Angelo should go. He's the son of Hades, and he fits the prophecy a LOT more than me."

Nico, who had been silent up until know, looked up. "What prophecy?"

We hurriedly told him about the prophecy, and the curse on Carter, Leo and Percy. If it was possible, he got paler. "Okay." He said nervously. "But you guys don't have to worry about a room for me. I always manage to find places to sleep." He held up his hand as the others tried to argue. "It's fine. You'll be cramped as it is."

Walt shook his head. "I'll stay behind. Remember, Sadie? You can use the _shen _amulet if you need me."

"Oh, yeah!" I quickly explained to the demigods about how I could pull Walt to me through the Duat with the amulet on my necklace. I wasn't sure if it helped them understand, or just made them even more confused, but they all shrugged. "So now that we have this cleared up, when will we leave? Are we ready now?"

I got a chorus of "yeahs" and "sure, I guess" from the nine assorted demigods and magicians. Carter just raised his hand weakly, which i suppose meant that it was really just the demigods answering. "Okay. Let me go up and get my stuff ready. Carter, I'll get yours. Be back in a flash!"

I marched back into the mansion and stomped up the stairs. I nearly ran into Felix, who was looking dejected. I felt a stab of guilt. I hadn't spoken to him since we were at Camp Half-Blood, and he'd been claimed by Boreas. He must have been feeling al little confused, maybe even scared. "Hey, how're you doing?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Okay, I guess. I just remember when I found out that I'm the blood of the pharaohs, and now I'm also a demigod. I don't know if I belong at camp, or if I should be here."

I pursed my lips. "I don't know. Something you'll have to think about, I guess. Maybe, you can stay here during school months, and during the summer you can visit Camp Half-Blood to hone your demigod skills?"

He shrugged. "I guess it explains the icy powers."

"You're icy powers were pretty awesome. Carter was very impressed by that stunt you pulled in capture-the-flag." I assured him.

Felix smiled, brightening considerably. "Really? It wasn't that hard either. It was just like this tug in my stomach, an instinct, and then this HUGE ice wall was rising about me!"

I smiled. "That's really cool. No pun intended." I patted his shoulder and passed him, heading to my room. I quickly collected my staff, wand, and my bag full of the daily needs of a an Egyptian magician. Then I stopped by Carter's room and gathered his things. Luckily, he was very organized, so all I really had to do was grab his bag and snatch a thing or two and bee-line outta there before everyone started to wonder what I was doing.

When I got to the balcony, the others were already waiting at the gang-plank. I joined them, and turned to address the magicians. "I know the last day has been confusing. A lot of you don't even fully understand what is going on right now."

I watched as looks of agreement passed through the crowd. Standing here, I could get a good representation of how many people had joined the 21st Nome. I felt my heart swell with pride, remembering the cold empty halls when we'd first came here, and now they were full of kids, teenagers, and adults. Some of them had been here when we fought Apophis. Other had showed up after. I realized that I had grown, too. Never would I have been able to stand and talk in front of dozens of people with confidence before.

Saving the world tends to do that to you.

"Well, yesterday we found out that the Egyptian gods weren't the only ones out there. The Greek gods are real, and they had children with mortals. These children are called demigods. The new people here," I motioned to Piper. "Piper here is the daughter of Aphrodite, goddess of love. Jason is the of Zeus, Percy is the son of Poseidon, Leo is the son of Hephaestus, and Nico is the son of Hades."

I took a deep breath. Yes, I do have to breathe sometimes. "And then I recently found out we had a demigod in out midst through even Apophis's invasion." I looked at Felix, who hesitantly walked in front of everyone. "Behold," I said with a smirk. "Felix, son of Boreas, god of the north winds and winter and so on."

Everyone in the crowd clapped, and someone yelled: "That explains the penguins in the fireplace!"

I continued. "Now Carter and I are going on a quest to stop the ghost Setne from doing anymore harm." I paused, racking my brain. "Yup. That's it. We're going now, and I'm leaving Walt Stone and Zia Rashid in charge of the 21st Nome."

Question swelled from the crowd of magicians, but I held up my hands. "Look, I'll try to answer the questions when I get back. So without further ado," I turned and marched up the gang-plank. Carter followed me, and then the rest. Leo practically flew to the controls, his hands blurring as he moved impossibly fast. I wondered how he did it. Maybe he hyped up on sugar every morning? No, I think his personality.

I was having a hard time living up to my rather snide self, what with Carter being so ill. He didn't even look pale anymore, more of a dull purplish-gray. It was a little frightening. The curse didn't seem to affect Percy and Leo as much as Carter. It probably had something to do with their godly parents. I couldn't help but wonder how the wound had healed up. If his skin was turning colors, how did the curse rune on his chest look like? I shuddered at the thought.

I turned to watch as the 21st Nome disappeared from sight. I guess we would be saving the world again. I remembered what Percy had said. Demon-snake thing. Apophis? Bloody likely. I didn't want to believe Apophis was coming back. Please, no. But, of course, there was that part of me that said it was logically possible. It would fit with my dreams, and Carter's dreams. The idea was so terrifying . . . I shrugged my shoulders, trying to relieve the stress. If snake-breath was coming back, I'd be happy to greet him with a smile and extra-painful death-by-execration.

Carter walked up to me. "This is crazy."

I laughed. "If you ask me, traveling the sea of Chaos was crazier."

He shrugged. "Maybe. Remember those dreams? You don't really think . . ."

"Carter, I don't know what to think." I snapped. "I just know, I want to drag Setne to the underworld and stomp on his spirit the whole time."

Carter grinned. "Yeah, me, too." He frowned at the horizon. "So where is the strong magical disturbances that were detected in the scrying bowls?"

"Just outside east Detroit," I said. "In some sort of shack or warehouse. It was pretty hard to miss, so I think Leo's plot for Detroit should take us close enough to find it on foot."

It was silent for awhile. We were high up in the clouds, so the land below looked small. We were heading at a pretty fast rate, so I figured we'd be in Detroit before evening. "So, chicken head, how is your wound doing?"

He stiffened. "Fine. It's healing well."

I could tell he was lying, but before I could wring him for answers, the ship rocked and nearly sent me and Carter overboard. I spun around, and saw that Leo wasn't at the controls. Where was he? Surely he wouldn't . . . A scream from above made me swing my head up.

Leo was being held up by a - what was that? It had dragon back legs, donkey front legs, with wings on its back. Its head was a cobra, hissing with poison dripping from its fangs. Its claws were digging - painfully, I'd presume - into Leo's shoulders. He burst into flames, but it only seemed to annoy the monster. He screamed curses and swung a huge hammer around, hitting nothing but air. He suddenly jerked in agony and dropped his hammer as his flames started to sputter out. Then he went limp in the creature's talons.

I shook myself from my shock and called my wand and staff from the Duat and readied a spell. Carter was having more difficulties in his weakened state. He struggled to get the Horus avatar up, but it only flickered around him in a weak blue aura. I winced. "Carter, leave this fight to me." I spoke the spell, and fire raced up my staff and shot out at the monster holding Leo. I had been practicing for a long time to get this spell right. The fire singed the monster, but like Leo's fire, it only irritated it. I cursed in ancient Egyptian and spoke another spell - my favorite.

"Ha-di!" The creature shrieked as it was assaulted by the spell, but it still didn't fall. I heard thundering footsteps, and the other demigods came up.

Annabeth gasped, and then drew her dagger. She began yelling at the others and they took positions on deck. Jason lifted into the air and swung his gladius at the monster, only to have Leo punished with a harder talon-grip. The curly-haired boy cried out and squirmed. Jason yelled and lightening arched from the sky, hitting the monster and knocking Leo from his grip. Leo fell, unconscious, to the deck and hit the wood hard, because no one was fast enough to catch him. I winced. _Poor Leo,_ I thought.

Jason was still battling the monster in the air. Percy yelled, "Jason! Draw the snake-donkey down here!"

The son of Zeus complied, edging downwards and taking the monster with him. He narrowly avoided getting snatched by the monster like Leo. The thing was amazingly fast, even after getting struck by lightening, getting hit by two of my most powerful spells, and being blasted by Leo's fire. As soon as the monster was low enough for them to hit, the demigods, including Carter, leapt at it. When they backed off, there was nothing left but a pile of golden sand. They stood back, panting. Leo moaned on the deck, blood starting to soak his shirt.

I gasped, remembering his shoulder was already hurt. Apparently the other realized this, too, because they rushed to his side. I ran over with Carter, and took out my wand. I was never a healer, but I knew a few spells. Annabeth started tearing at the old wrappings on his wound. I had the spell ready, on the tip of my tongue, and Annabeth pulled the bandages off. A collective gasp, and a startled shriek from Piper, echoed.

"Gods of Eternal Egypt," I breathed.

* * *

**Cliff hanger! Like it? Course not! (Who likes cliff hangers?) Who should narrate next: Piper or Jason? Comment who you want to hear from next. Until then ~**

**LunaEtSidera**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **

**Thank you for all the reviews! I hope you guys know that reviews mean the world to me :D It inspires me to write more and update faster (I'm kind of lazy sometimes...all the time). **

**I response to one of the comments (by A), No, I'm not making Carter weak, he's just not a demigod so the curse affects him more. Carter's one of my favorite characters so he isn't going to be weak through out the the whole story. **

**Disclaimer: Seriously? Do you think Rick Riordan would be doing fanfics of his own stuff? Ha! I don't own it. :)**

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

**JASON**

I've seen some messed up stuff.

Most demigods go through Hades, but I think I'm unfortunate enough to admit I take to cake for bad experiences. That just comes with being the son of Jupiter. It is kind of like asking for more unwanted monster attention. I've killed the Trojan sea monster, fought most of Gaea's giants, and killed too many monsters to fight, not to mention taken on my fare share of titans. But it's not just that; my life is riddled with godly intervention, and godly influence is world-renown for having cataclysmic repercussions. I don't need to make a list of random heroes through out time and history to prove that.

I was taken from my mother by Hera - or Juno, whatever - when I was just two, and then raised by wolves before being sent across the country by myself to find Camp Jupiter, where I was treated badly at first for being part of thee 5th Cohort. Quests led to monster attack after monster attack. Finally I dragged myself to recognition in the legion when I battled and defeated the titan Krios with my own hands. I was raised on a shield as Praetor of the 12th Legion fulminata - _armed with lightening._ Great! Then I'm abducted by Hera, _again,_ and taken to the Greek side of the world. Not to complain, after all I met my awesome girlfriend Piper because of then, but it was frustrating at first. Yeah, when I say my life is one big godly chess board, with little pieces of Jason Grace for the pawns, I'm not really exaggerating too much.

So, I should be used to it, right?

Wrong. Who gets used to monsters trying to kill them on an hourly basis? We were in the infirmary, with everyone on board crowding around Leo. The ship was rocking gently in the wind, and I could sense there were some storm spirits outside that really wanted to take a bite out of the ship, but I sent them a clear mental warning: _I am not in the mood, you attack and I will send you to Tartarus._ So the storm spirits didn't attack, but they started pushing the _Argo,_ just to get on my nerves. Wild spirits of the wind god Aeolus are like that sometimes. *Cough* always *cough*. You see, we kind of ticked the wind god off last year, and now fly - even for me - was beginning to become a nightmare.

And anyways, this wasn't a monster dissolving into golden sand. This was Leo, who had been there the whole time while we were on the _Argo II_ to defeat Gaea. He had given his time and dedication to the gods to live out their prophecy, and this was how he was repaid? The son of Hephaestus lay, a little pale, on a cot. The color of shadow was slowly - almost too slow to see - crawling down his arm, across his chest, and up his neck. The color faded, turning the skin around it a grayish color. The silvery runes had also spread and thickened, curling and bending in a mesmerizing pattern across his skin. Thankfully there was no grotesque deformity besides the color change, even though that was disturbing. The scariest part was the way the silver pulsated in glowing energy, pumping out light for the whole world to see.

All seven of us stood, silent, while we waited for Leo to wake up. Finally, the curly-haired latino moaned and opened his eyes, his brown eyes flicking from person to person. He cleared his throat slightly self-consciously. "Look, I know I'm the king of scrawny and everyone loves that, but seriously?"

That ensued some laughter, though tinged with fear, from his small crowd. "We were just making sure you feel okay." Annabeth said carefully. "Do you feel anything . . . different?"

Leo shrugged his shoulders, unaware of his skin condition. "I feel a little more charged. Like I'm getting energy from a generator. Ambrosia and nectar?"

I hesitated. "Yeah, that and there's something different. You sure you don't feel anything?"

He shrugged, but he was starting to look nervous. "No, I'm sure. Look, if I have something wrong with me, would you just spill the beans?"

I mirrored his movement. "Alright. Well look at your chest."

He looked baffled. "What does that have to do with any - HOLY HEPHAESTUS!" He poked his shoulder, as if expecting his skin to rile up and bite him. "What in the name of Hades is this? How'd it get so bad? Percy, Carter, are you guys this bad?"

The other two boys stiffened considerably. Percy's face looked a little afraid, while Carter had a look of . . . was that guilt?

Sadie Kane turned on her brother. "How's that wound going, eh brother, dear? Got something you need to show me?"

_Uh-oh._

Cater, very slowly and very reluctantly, showed the runes to Sadie, who promptly turned red. "Carter!" She snapped, making the host of the god of war wince. "Why didn't you say something earlier?" His chest was similar to Leo's. It looked as if shadows had seeped into his skin and was spreading. What in the name of Olympus was going on?

I turned to see Annabeth scolding Percy. The son of Poseidon was lucky, though. All that time he spent in the pool at the 21st Nome must have slowed the spreading. Now, we just had to find out with the Hades was wrong with them. They put their shirts back down, looking a little embarrassed. Percy immediately grabbed a cup of water. I expected him to drink it like a normal person - stupid me - but instead he dumped it over his head. He smiled, as though the sun had suddenly came out and the world was saved by that greatly important, life-saving cup of water. Leave it to the Seaweed Brain, as Annabeth often - but fondly - called him.

Leo startled me out of my thoughts by jumping up and stretching. "Enough resting! I need to get to the controls and get this warship to Detroit." He gave his typical wild grin, and I could not help but return the smile. No admitted it as much as they should, but it was Leo's continuous cheerfulness that got us through every tough situation. The Kanes and Rashid might not have seen this yet, but I figured as soon as something happened they would be thankful for his lightheartedness. _I_ was grateful. Ugh, I sound like a child of Aphrodite, which is to say, waaay too sappy.

Leo ran up the steps to the deck. Within minutes I could feel the Argo change trajectory slightly, and I knew we were back on track.

On the way up the steps, I fell in step with Piper. She smiled and reached over and took my hand. Her touch seemed to send small electric currents up my arm, as though Temptest, my storm spirit horse, had zapped me. That was ridiculous, because I was the son of Jupiter, and was impervious the lightening and electric shocks. It was just Piper. I remembered her when we first came to Camp Half-Blood: how quiet and withdrawn she was. I always thought she was beautiful, but I was shocked (no pun intended) when she was claimed by Aphrodite. She just didn't seem to fit the title then. Now, though, she had changed so much. She was open and welcoming to people, and she had become even more beautiful, yet managed to stay humble tomboyish at times.

Basically I was luckiest guy on earth (and not complaining).

I returned the grip on her hands, along with the smile as we reached the uppermost deck and burst into the sunlight. The sun turned her eyes light blue, but then she faced away from the sun and her eyes went a greenish-brown. Her eyes were so confusing. I knew some people thought we were taking our relationship too slow, but honestly I loved to watch it expand and grow, firm and fast and sure of itself. Maybe I'm waxing a little too philosophical. That's what happens when your girlfriend hangs around a daughter of Athena a lot. She started to get influenced by the Annabeth, and then she starts to influence me. Poor, poor Percy. He had the Athena smarts and wisdom full-dose.

"So we're off on a knew adventure, I guess." Piper broke the silence and stole me from my boring philosophical thoughts. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Piper.

"Yup," I said. "Wonder who is taking over the world this time."

She smiled. "Yeah, this will be your _third_ time saving the world! You honestly deserve a metal for the most times saved the world."

I laughed, imagining myself standing on a stage, looking uncomfortable, with an announcer yelling: "Here's to Jason Grace, son of Jupiter! For a record of almost dying while saving the world _three times!_"

"Yeah, Percy's technically has already saved the world three times, when he stopped Zeus from tearing the world apart for his lightening bolt, the Titan War, and the Giant War. The guy gets around."

"Well, if you're going to include the quests, then Percy's saved the world four times, the forth being when he freed death and prevented Gaea's awakening earlier." Piper stated.

"Yeah, and I defeated Porphyrion!" I insisted.

She laughed. "Okay, Sparky."

I tried to give her an offended look, but I'm afraid I failed rather miserably. I rested my elbows on the railing, and Piper leaned closer and hooked her arm around mine, staring out at the horizon. I took her as a role model and gazed at nothing for a while. The scenery had changed from the urban of Brooklyn, and was now rolling miles of hills and brilliant green grass. The sky was crystal clear, but off to the east there were intense storm clouds building. Too bad we were heading east. Besides for the looming storms, it was peaceful.

Or at least until the storm spirits attacked.

A violent gust of wind ripped across the deck, knocking Leo away from the controls. I turned around and groaned loudly. Storm spirits. Vague silhouettes of horses flickered in hovering dark clouds that whipped the deck up in the wind. They charged the deck and tore it apart, and grabbed the son of Hephaestus, who was struggling to pick himself up because of the wind. He yelped in response to the unwelcome help and promptly burst into flames, yelling at them. Something about burning in his dad's beard?

I grabbed my golden coin - I had gotten it repaired after the Giant War (courtesy of Hera) - and flipped it. When it landed in my hand, I had a shining golden sword, ready to teach the naughty storm spirits a lesson about not listening to the son of Jupiter. I charged, and was aware of Piper behind me swinging her bronze dagger. It great to know that your girlfriend has a dagger she can use, _very well._The storm spirits didn't know what hit them. I swung at one, effectively slicing it in half, and spun around, stabbing another. I glanced over at Piper for a microsecond and saw her taking care of three other spirits. Even Leo was holding them off with a long dagger he'd crafted for himself after the war. Soon all that was left of the monster invasion was a few sorry piles of sand, which promised that they'd never disobey me again.

I'm a great teacher that way.

Leo panted and returned to his controls, yet again righting our course and sending us toward Detroit, not Alabama. Those storm spirits could really turn a ship around. A few seconds later, Sadie and Carter came running up. "We thought we heard fighting," Carter said.

I suppressed a smile. "Yeah. We got attacked by about a dozen _venti_, or storm spirits." I sounded nonchalant, even to myself.

The Kanes looked at me weirdly. "You sound too used to that for my liking," Sadie said.

I shrugged. "After passing the Mare Nostrum - the Mediterranean sea - where you have several attacks _per hour_ this is nothing. In a huge Celestial bronze ship like this, we're bound to attract attention."

Suddenly Sadie gave a strangled cry, and pointed up. "D-Dragon!"

I spun around, coin in hand, and saw a huge bronze dragon gliding down gracefully to meet us. I relaxed. "Oh. That's Festus!" There was someone on Festus's back, but they were too far away for me to tell who it was.

Carter squinted. "There's a girl on the dragon's back."

I gaped. "You can see that far?!" I asked incredulously.

Sadie shrugged in return. "We hosted gods, and that has it's advantages."

"No kidding," I muttered.

Sure enough, as Festus drew closer I could see it was, in fact, a girl riding on his back. But it wasn't just an ordinary girl. I grinned. "Hey, LEO," I yelled. "You're girlfriend is here!"

He dropped the control sticks and looked up at Festus, smiling brightly, but he looked a little nervous. I realized why. After hyping up ambrosia and nectar - enough to make us worry - he had looked a little better. Even so, he still had a sheen of gray about his face and tired bags. No doubt he was afraid Calypso would be worried about him.

I felt a spark of teasing inspiration and grinned again. "Leo, I really doubt she'd going to care how you look. Besides, I also doubt she fell for your looks in the first place," I said with a light voice, to let him know that I was only messing with him.

He didn't take offence. "Yeah, but she couldn't resist my wonderful jokes and funny personality!"

Piper rolled her eyes. "Funny-_looking,_" she countered.

"Ouch, Beauty Queen!" He said, mocking hurt. "Not all of us are children of Aphrodite! Jason painfully reminds us of that."

My head snapped up. "Hey!"

Calypso, who apparently had very keen hearing, shouted at us, "Oh please! Is this how you fight monsters? No wonder you're so good - they probably fall over laughing at your ridiculousness."

That incited a chorus of "Hey!"s.

* * *

We all sat around the table in the mess hall of the ship, eating their chosen food and talking. Nico held up his pomegranate and smiled faintly. "This, friends, is the chosen food of the prophecy."

I laughed. "And this," I said, holding up a piece of chicken, "is the one we'll kill no reason and make everyone depressed." Okay, so maybe that wouldn't be funny if you weren't a demigod, but we all started cracking up.

Percy held up his - was that really his fourth piece? - pizza and grinned. "And this is will bring on the end of the world."

"Who wouldn't die for pizza, Percy?" I laughed again.

Leo threw up his hands. "Screw the world! I'm taking the pizza!"

Laughter sounded around the table. Ah, food brings out the best in people. Even Carter was grinning as he said, "this roll might make an excellent host for the king of the gods."

Sadie exploded and doubled over, followed by Leo and, surprisingly, Calypso. I snickered at the thought of a god's . . . godly voice echoing from a roll. That would be worth recording on video.

Annabeth laughed. "Hilarious, but seriously, before Nico interrupted what I was saying about the prophecy with his fruit, we need to talk over the prophecy."

Nico shrugged. "The "fruit" as you so callously referred to it, is a lifesaver. Literally in some instances. Show respect." He deadpanned it, but there was amusement glittering in his dark eyes.

It almost took me aback. Nico, who was always so gloomy, seemed to have gotten over whatever was bothering him. I was glad, because now I know the son of Hades has a really good sense of humor. He seemed lighter, as though he'd come to terms with his problems and excepted them, and now his life was a lot better. I wasn't going to say anything about it, but of course Leo, ever blurting his thoughts, had no such qualms.

"I didn't know you had a sense of humor, Death Breath!" He laughed.

Nico di Angelo scowled at him, but before he could call any skeletons to send Leo overboard, Annabeth tactfully interrupted. "_Anyways,"_ she said. "Can we please stay on topic?"

Percy gave a lop-sided grin. "Sure, Wise Girl."

She flushed. "Well, it's obviously Nico has something to contribute in this, 'child of death' is pretty straightforward."

"Of course," Percy grumbled, "that means the rest has to be so vague we'd might as well not have a prophecy."

Carter spoke up, but he looked like he _really_ did not want to. "Okay, I know that Nico and Annabeth are unfamiliar with our own adventures while saving the world. Last year, Apophis rose. He is the serpent of Chaos and he wants to dissolve everything -"

"Into a sea of nothingness," Percy cut in. We stared at him and he shrugged. "I've been having dreams."

Sadie frowned. "Ba visions?"

Percy snorted. "What do I look like, a sheep? And counting them _never_ put me to sleep, either."

I grinned as the ADHD in the room hit its peak.

Annabeth scowled. "Guys! Carter, I heard from Sadie what happened. The god of Chaos rose up and swallowed the sun - or Ra. He tried to plunge the world into disorder, but Sadie and Carter managed to use an execration spell on him. Although an execration wouldn't completely destroy Apophis, it is kind of like blowing up a nuclear bomb in a god's face -"

She was reward with a round of snickers across the table. Percy muttered something about Ares needed that.

"- and it would injure them greatly." She finished.

Sadie was grinning, but a single look from Carter cut off the grin. _What did they know?_ Carter cleared his throat. "Well we kind of got off track. I can see now why they say demigods are known for ADHD. As I was saying, Apophis nearly destroyed everything. We got rid of him, _temporarily,_ as I'm now thinking."

Annabeth chewed her lip thoughtfully. "What do you mean? The serpent is coming back?"

Gods, Annabeth is smart. It all made sense now. "_Enemies of the past leave the mark,"_ I said carefully. "I guess we have enemies that are coming back. I think the curses on Carter, Leo and Percy are the marks." _  
_

Annabeth nodded, and I saw some nervousness in her stormy grey eyes. "_The corruption of chaos will come slow, but seeds of evil it will quickly sow."_ She sighed. "Personally, I think this part is the clearest. The seeds of chaos - or just things to cause destruction in general - have more than likely been already planted. Thankfully, it will take a while for these to take a wide-scale effect. We have to find them, and stop them."

I nodded in agreement. "The part that really gets me is the help from the west, and fire and magic raging. Oh, and how is Nico going to become a cage? And are we going to divide at some time?"

Annabeth frowned, clearly troubled. Percy reached over and took her hand, smiling warmly at her. She relaxed at his touch. "I'm not sure. I've got some ideas, but . . ." Her voice trailed off.

I knew this: she didn't want to tell us anything unless it was incredibly bad and painful, or she just wasn't sure enough to tell us. _Please, make it be the latter._

Leo tapped his glass. "Well, to lighten things up, we'll be in Detroit within the hour. Then hopefully we can get some answers."

Sadie nodded. "Carter and I will lead you to were we found the magic spikes. It wouldn't be smart to hang over them in a warship and hope they don't see us."

I scowled at Leo. "You said you had the invisibility stuff ready." I had no idea what the technical term for the invisible things Leo had been experience.

He fidgeted. "I didn't have enough time to run tests!" He protested.

Calypso frowned at me, and despite the fact I was taller and stronger than her, I cringed. She had a temper on her. "Don't be so harsh, Jason," She reprimanded. "He spends most of his time in the engine room of the Argo tinkering away as it is."

Leo flushed. "Hey, my projects are more than "tinkering.""

Calypso rolled her eyes, but Carter groaned. "Ugh! Come _on,_ stay on topic! Apophis is coming back with vengeance on his mind, so we need to find a solution, _now."_

Annabeth shot me a disapproving look, and I cringed even more. "I agree. Please try to _not_ get distracted.

"Not making any promises," Leo grumbled under his breath, but Calypso grabbed his hand, much like Percy with Annabeth, and smiled at him. Leo immediately returned the smile. I began to feel a little let out. That's when Piper grabbed my hand. Cure of left-outness discovered in that second. I grinned.

There was only one person missing. We were all looking at Carter, who flushed. Zia was up piloting the ship while we took council - or lack thereof - around the dinner table with pizza and chips. I laughed inwardly. Sometimes it was so worth being a demigod for moments like this. Zia suddenly came running down the stairs and burst into the room, interrupting our meeting. I didn't have to know Leo to see the mischief on his face. _Uh-oh,_ I thought.

"Leo," I snapped. "Whatever you're thinking, don't."

He scowled at me and his nose burst into flames - what, the third time that day? Zia tactfully ignored him. "We have arrived in Detroit."

Before anyone could react, a figure stepped out of nowhere. We all leapt to our feet, I had my coin in hand, Percy had his pen, but Carter and Sadie did something unexpected. "_Bast!_" They yelled with joy and rushed at the woman standing there. She purred and smiled.

"Aw, my kittens are so grown up! And you've made knew friends!" She turned to us, and I got a full view of her face. She clearly wasn't human. She had cat-like yellow eyes like lanterns, with wide dilated pupils. Her black hair was pulled back into a braid, and she wore a leopard-print body suit. She grinned at us. "So who are the new kittens?"

I blinked. I've never been called a kitten before. "Uh, I'm Jason Grace, son of Jupiter. This is Piper, daughter of Aphrodite, Percy, son of Poseidon -"

"Best god ever," Percy cut in.

"- and Annabeth is the daughter of Athena. Nico is the son of Hades, Leo is the son of Hephaestus, and that's Calypso."

Bast blinked. "Godlings? REAL demigods?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Okay. I'm the goddess Bast, protector of women and children. And I'm a veyr good fighter."

"_Very _good," Carter stressed. "Bast, it's lovely to see you, but we're on a mission. Can you fill us in after we get back?"

She smiled. "Of course! I'd never keep you children from your duties."

Sadie and Carter jumped out of their seats. Sadie turned to Leo. "I'll show you were to land, and we'll guide you down." With that, they bounded out of the mess hall like they'd been looking for an excuse to run away. I shrugged and got up, leading Piper out and up the stairs to the deck. I felt the ship lurch, and knew we were already landing. Yep, the Kanes _definitely _wanted off the ship. By the time we made it up, the ship was landed and the gang-plank was lowered. I suppressed a grin at Piper's confused look.

There was a debate on who should go - we didn't want to too many people to leave the protection of the ship because that would only attract more attention from monsters. Eventually we settled on Percy and Annabeth - they refused to be separated - me, Sadie and Carter. Zia reluctantly relented to staying with Leo, Calypso, Piper, Bast and Nico on the ship. Before we left, she kissed Carter on the cheek - which made him blush vibrant enough to light the darkest part of Tartarus. I resisted the urge to grin at him teasingly. Sadie was laughing at him, so I decided to spare the guy.

The brother and sister led us through fields, forest, some pastures, and through another forest before Percy complained. "We're lost, aren't we?"

Sadie scowled. "I am _not_ lost."

"Yes we are."

"No we aren't."

"Yes we are."

"No we -"

"Oh would you two just _shut up!"_ Annabeth and Carter snapped in unison.

Percy gave her a big green-eyed stare, and she softened slightly. Unfortunately for Sadie, her brother didn't care how much she begged with her eyes. He scowled at her. Then he looked up and pointed. "Look, there's the shack we saw in the scrying bowl!" Sure enough, the was a small shack in front of us. It was in shambles, with boarded-up windows, even from here I could see the black mold crawling up the walls on the outside. It was definitely a health hazard.

Sadie stuck her chin out stubbornly at Percy. "Told you so."

Percy scowled at her, but chose to ignore it. Good for him, too, because I could see Annabeth glaring daggers at him.

We walked in silence after that to the shack. My heart sank as we drew closer. I looked rather . . . abandoned. We walked closer, and I drew my coin out and flipped it. It turned into a golden sword again. Percy joined the weapon-drawing tirade and uncapped Riptide. A full-length bronze sword appeared in his hand, and he tapped a watch on his wrist. Carter whistled appreciatively as a shield opened up from the watch, spiraling out to show some images of him and Annabeth fighting a hydra. They looked younger, maybe around thirteen.

Sadie squinted at the picture. "Wow, did you guys fight that?"

Percy nodded proudly. "Yeah, on our way to the Sea of Monsters."

I raised an eyebrow. "You guys just love going into forbidden waters, don't you?"

Carter pulled his _khopesh,_ as he called it, out of thin air. I shook my head. "That just never gets old." I admired the curved metal, it wasn't celestial bronze, but it still had an aura of power. Sadie had pulled her wand and staff from the - what's it called? - Duat. Annabeth was armed with her bronze dagger. All in all, we looked like demigods out to kill. It was really impressive. I guess being a demigod wasn't so bad, when you know you've got people to back you up and watch your back.

I took charge - a habit I was so used to - and attempted to open the door. When it didn't immediately oblige, I stepped back and then rushed forward and kicked it down. Dust billowed up, blowing out and coating my face. I scowled and resisted the urge to sneeze. I walked in, motioning for the others to wait. Percy obviously didn't listen. He walked straight up and scanned the left of the shack while I explored the right. It was empty. There was noting in here. With a sigh of defeat, I turned. "It's clear. Too clear. You guys can come in."

They immediately rushed in, and then stopped with they saw the shack's emptiness. Sadie groaned loudly and stomped across the one room, her foot steps echoing loudly. Wait . . . echoing? And it almost sounded like the floorboards were whimpering.

"Sadie," I whispered. "Stop."

She froze, and I walked over and stared at the lone innocent, terribly obvious rug placed in the center of the room. It was so easy to spot out it was pathetic. I grabbed the edge of it and yanked the rug back, revealing a trapdoor. I stepped back triumphantly. "I looks like there is more to this shack than previously thought."

Percy and I pried the trapdoor open, and dropped down. Sadie followed us. It was pitch-black, and I couldn't barely see my own hand in front of my face. Sadie whispered something - a spell - and the top of her staff burst into flames. She immediately yelped and stepped back in shock.

Annabeth and Carter followed after hearing her gasp. I started at the pathetic figure chained to the wall. A mop of blond hair covered his face, and his scare-crow form was covered in rags. I felt a pang of sympathy. "Hey," I said cautiously. "Who are you?"

The guy lifted his head, and I gasped. "Octavian?"

The augur of the 12th legion gave a small smile. "Hey," he croaked. "Miss me?"

**A/N:**


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER NINE**

**PERCY**

"Miss me?" Octavian's voice echoed in my ears.

I had conflicting feelings on this new discovery. You see, part of me wanted to help Octavian, but part of me wanted to turn on heel and leave him here. Or maybe gut him. I could tell the same thoughts were running through Annabeth's and Jason's faces. Octavian was not exactly known for being the nicest person in the world at Camp Jupiter, but we couldn't just leave him here to rot. That doesn't mean that it wasn't in the slightest bit tempting. Still, we had to get him out. He was clearly malnourished, even paler than he was before, and in dire need of a shower. His wrists were raw and bleeding from the shackles, and there were circles under his eyes from many sleepless nights. I scowled, figuring he'd served his sentence for being rude at camp.

Sadie and Carter were looking from Jason, to Annabeth, to me over and over again. They couldn't seem to understand why we were hesitating so long to free the skinny scarecrow. _If only they knew what a jerk he was,_ I thought. I remembered how he tried to blackmail Hazel into voting for him as Praetor while Jason was still missing. Being an augur, he'd seen that Hazel Levesque was from the past, freed from the underworld and given a second chance at life by Nico di Angelo. I sighed. Someone had to free Octavian. Might as well be me.

I uncapped Riptide, but decided to put the fear of Poseidon in him before I freed him. This was going to be fun. "So," I snapped. "First you try to get us Greeks killed during the Giant War, but know you're helping the magician-dude attack our camps? I didn't know you'd sank so low. Actually I did, seeing that you're in this pit."

Octavian's eyes widened in panic. "No, wait! I didn't aid him!" His expression turned sour. "It only makes sense he'd take me; no one _liked_ me at camp. I didn't have friends, I had allies. It would be easy to blame me for something."

Sadie rolled her eyes. "'I didn't have friends, I had allies', really? How melodramatic."

The augur scowled at her. "That's the whole idea, duh."

I coughed. "Anyway, we should get him out of here."

Jason shifted his sword in his grip a little and nodded. "I agree. As much as Octavian was jerk at camp even _he_ doesn't deserve to be in chains down here."

We all waited. Seconds ticked by, and then Carter tapped an imaginary watch. "Okay, are we going to release him or what?"

I shrugged. "Just savor the moment, Carter."

Jason laughed. "Yeah. Sometimes you just have to sit back and take a breather."

Carter rolled his eyes. "We're on a time-crunch."

I felt a stab of pain in my chest, where the runes were growing, and nodded in agreement. "We can't waste any more time down here."

I swung Riptide and the bronze blade passed cleanly through the steel chains. When they shattered, red hieroglyphs floated in the air momentarily before disappearing. Octavian immediately crumpled to the ground, no longer held up by his bounds. I briefly wondered how long he'd been down here in this dark pit. While I knew that this wasn't the worst place in the world - duh, I've been to Tartarus - I knew that it had to have been rough. I capped Riptide and slung Octavian across my shoulder. He wasn't strong enough to walk, and I was not going to try and make him. I wasn't _that_ cruel.

It was kind of hard to get back up, but after a few fails - and bumping Octavian's head a half dozen times - we got out. By then the augur was unconscious, which was fine with us. The last thing we wanted was his snide comments. As we walked out of the old warehouse and up the hill, then back through the forests, I scowled. "I hate the Fates," I grumbled.

Jason snorted. "You can say that again," he said.

I shook my head. "Why Octavian? Did Setne seriously need him? What was he doing, trying to get Octavian to tell him how long it was until the pizza delivery man got to the warehouse?"

Jason grinned. "I don't think they serve way out here. We'll grill him for information back on the Argo II."

Annabeth fell into step with me. "I wish he'd wake up. I have about three feet of questions to ask him."

I rose my eyebrows. "Then he'd better enjoy his sleeping, because he's in for a world-class migraine when he wakes up."

"Oh shut up, Seaweed Brain." She smiled and pecked my on cheek.

I couldn't wipe the grin off my face. I knew it would irritate her, but that was my main job, right? Well, besides for saving the world. Over and over again.

It seemed like hours, but we finally reached the Argo and were walking up the gang-plank. Annabeth filled Leo and the others in about what had transpired at the warehouse. Leo glanced at Octavian. "So that's all you found? No magical residue, no nothing?"

Octavian stirred and slipped off my shoulder onto the deck, scowling. "Clearly saving my life wasn't good enough."

The cat-like goddess Bast purred. "Saving any life is a great accomplishment."

"Yeah, yeah." I said. "Okay, let's not be cruel. He looked like he's had it rough for a while."

Annabeth frown, scrunching her eyebrows together. I loved it when she did that. "But why did he take you?"

Octavian sneered. "Is it really so hard to tell? Setne knew that pretty much _no one_ liked me. It would be easy to blame his magical helper as me, and get away unscathed while _I_ was persecuted."

I shrugged. "He's got a point."

Sadie sighed, frustrated. "That doesn't help us, though! We here hoping to find _Setne,_ so we could cure whatever is wrong with you, Leo, and Carter."

Octavian frowned. "Sorry, been out of the loop for a while. What wrong with you?"

Once again, Annabeth hurriedly explained to him what had befallen us the past few days. The augur rolled his eyes. "Oh, _that._ Yeah, I know what's wrong with you."

That got out attention. "What is it?" Asked ten voices simultaneously.

Bast flexed her wrists, and my shock - a little bit of fear - two wickedly sharp daggers slipped into her hands, glinting nicely in the sunlight. "Good, good. Who do I get to kill for hurting my kittens?"

Carter rose his hands. "Wait, first I'd really like know how you're here, Bast? I though you said that the gods had to retreat."

Bast's lamp-like yellow eyes looked sad. "Yes, but that was before the serpent returned. Now that he has come back, the gods can also return to reinstate the balance between Order - Ma'at and Chaos - Isfet."

Carter scowled. "So it's true. Apophis is back."

"Don't say his name!" Bast and I hissed at the same time.

I blushed. "Names have power," I said.

Bast looked pleased. "It seems the son of the sea god has tomcat in him after all!"

I blinked. "I-Is that good?"

From behind Bast, Sadie mouthed, _play along._

"Oka-ay," I said. "Well, now that that is all cleared up, what do we do with the runes, Octavian?"

Octavian rolled his eyes. "Right about time. I was starting to think you _liked_ giving your power to that snake."

We froze. "_What?"_ I asked incredulously.

"The runes are sapping your energy and giving it to the serpent to help him rise faster." Octavian explained. "I overheard him talking about it, while he thought I was unconscious and couldn't hear through that thin floor. The serpent only needs the lives of two powerful demigods and the host of the king of the gods to rise. Setne was originally planning to hit Percy and Frank - it would have been better since they were both very powerful and related. He settled for Leo, though, because he was easier to hit."

I was trembling, whether from fear or anger - or both - I was yet to find out. "So you are tell me, that our _lifeforce _is being used to - to . . ." I spluttered and broke off."

For the first time since I'd seen him, Octavian looked sympathetic. "There _is_ a way to break the connection. But it's very dangerous, and getting the means of breaking it will be almost suicidal."

I looked from face to face on the ship, and they all shrugged. I turned back to Octavian. "I think I speak for everyone when I say that we're used to dangerous and suicidal."

He smiled. "I thought you'd say that. Well, we need to find that thing that cast the spell on you. It will lead to you to the place the sky goddess Nut hid from Ra to give birth to the five main Egyptian gods, Osiris, Isis, Horus, Set and Nephthys. The legend talks about it being the purest place in the world, where untainted, unused magic resided. There is a pool, which is where Nut bathed the newborn gods and goddesses to make sure they were clean and untainted by Ra, who had tried to poison them."

Annabeth had a calculating look on her face. _Uh-oh,_ I thought. _Here comes the questions._ "So how do we get there? And how are we going to capture the demon that did this to Percy, Carter and Leo?"

Octavian looked relieved. "Well, getting to us shouldn't be the hard part. Since it failed to hit Frank and got Leo, they didn't succeed to get enough power. They're looking another demigod, with power equal to Leo's to balance it out. They have their sights on one demigod in particular - the son of Boreas."

Sadie and Carter froze, fear in their eyes. "You're saying that the demon is going to go after Felix? He's the son of Boreas!"

Octavian raised his hands defensively. "I'm afraid so. Where ever this Felix kid is, there will be an attack soon."

I felt a tinge of fear for Felix. I didn't know the kid well, but he was nice and innocent. He didn't deserve to have a power-hungry monster coming at him. "We need to get back to 21st Nome, _now._ Who knows how long Setne and his demons will wait before attacking."

That is when Leo shifted and cleared his throat, suddenly taking an immense interest in the floor boards. We all waited. "What?" I snapped.

"Ah, about Felix. Well, we just _might _have a _little_ stowaway on board. Um, it's just a vague hunch, but . . " Leo looked very guilty.

Bast glared him, and I saw him squirm under her intense scrutiny. Who would blame him while she's carrying those knives? "A hunch is not something to take lightly. You also seem to have some cat in you."

He frowned. "Um, what?"

Calypso - what was she doing here? I wondered - scowled at the son of Hephaestus. "Spill the beans, Leo."

"Okay, okay!" He said. "Felix is on board! He snuck on before we left. When I found him he gave me the big-eyes look and all he wanted to do was find out how the engine worked, and that was kind of like opening a can of worms for me. I wanted to tell him everything about the engine, after no one listens to me about the engineering stuff."

Piper, who had been quiet until now, sighed. "Go get him, Leo."

A few minutes later, Felix stood on the topmost deck. He looking at his shoes with even more interest than the penguins waddling around him. I instantly felt bad for him. Hey, it's totally normal for kids to get curious about huge Greek triremes and sneak on board! Or at least normal for demigod kids. "It's okay," I told him. "You were just curious. I can respect that."

He looked up at me, his ice-blue eyes filled with hope. "So you aren't going to tie me to a cannon and throw me overboard?"

I laughed. "Temping, but no. Why would we do that?"

He looked at me earnest eyes. I could see how Leo had given in. "Well, in the books my mom made me read about Greek mythology they would throw stowaways off the ship, tied to a cannon or something else that's heavy."

I frowned. "Your mom made you read _books_ about Greek mythology? You poor kid."

Felix nodded. "It sucked! You see, I have dyslexia, so it's really hard to read. But I can read in ancient Greek just fine! It's so weird."

I smiled. Felix here was a typical demigod - dyslexia, reading Greek, and clearly by the amount of energy he had he was ADD or ADHD. Maybe both. "That's normal for demigods. We're half Greek god, so half of our brains - our dominate half, too - is made for reading _Greek, _not English. That's why you have 'dyslexia'. Since English letters are similar to Greek, your brain is trying to put them together like a puzzle, but it's not working."

Felix looked skeptical. "And the ADHD?"

"Battle reflexes," I said simply. "Trust me, in a fight, you'll be grateful for it."

He nodded. "ADD?"

Wow, this kid was loaded with demigod-ishness. "Again, battle reflexes. You can't stay on topic, or stay still, because you need to be aware of _everything_ around you."

"Makes sense." He said, as the other demigods, plus titan and goddess, came over. I had been keeping Felix entertained while they came up with a plan. I hated it, but we were using Felix as bait for Setne. We would keep Felix out in the open, and wait for Setne to attack. Hopefully we wouldn't have to wait too long. I hate waiting.

"So, do you guys have it all worked out?" I asked.

Annabeth nodded. "Yeah. Leo's going to land, and we're going to wait a little while's away from the ship. It will be more tempting for them to attack while we're away from the ship."

I nodded. "But not so far that we have to worry about the demon escaping."

"Exactly." She said.

A few minutes later, I felt the ship lurch and a rush of wind blew my hair back and I knew we were landing. I wasn't sure what state we were in, but Leo had landed us in an open field. All around was thick, dense forest. Thankfully, being the son of Poseidon, I could choose whether or not I wanted to the humidity to affect me. After all, it was water in the air. I stayed nicely cooled while everyone else sweated miserably. I discovered that my powers did have their limits, and unfortunately I could tell the water to obey the others and keep them cool without soaking them. Felix solved that though, with his ice powers. The whole area was suddenly cooled off, almost cold. There was another lurch, and a dull vibration, and I knew we were landed.

Leo lowered the gangplank and I took Felix, along with Jason and Nico, down to the ground. We decided that for the first time we _wanted_ to attract attention, and having three children of the big three gods was the best way. Jason was tense, and kept turning his coin around over and over in his hands, and there was a strong static charge in the air around him. Nico twisted his ring around on his finger, just as uncomfortable, and the shadows seemed to stretch out and cling to him as he walked by the trees. I didn't realize I was so tense either, until Felix started gaping at me, and I realized I had a small hurricane spinning around my legs. Even Felix was having minor ice storm occur.

I watched the white flurry around Felix grow stronger and stronger until the ground around him was white and covered in several inches of ice and snow. That when I realized that though Felix wasn't the son of one of the big three, he was still incredibly powerful. _And he was only twelve years old._ It had taken me nearly four years to truly realize the extent of my power, and I was still learning. Felix was only twelve. What was he going to be like when he was my age?

Jason suddenly groaned, making all of us jump about a foot of the ground. Felix's storm got worse. "When are they going to attack? Take the bait already! I'm dying here!"

I laughed nervously, and edged away from Felix and Nico, who were both making the air very, _very_ cold in their own separate ways. "Um, could you guys stop?" I asked. "I'm going to freeze."

Felix looked around him, as if just realizing he was covering in snow and ice, and blushed. "Sorry." The blizzard died down, and when I shot a look and Nico the shadows retreated back to their respective trees.

I swept my eyes over the immediate area. I knew that the Argo II was just over to the east, behind a layer of forest in another clearing. We were at the edge of a ring of trees, looking into the small meadow. There was a flock of turkey and a few deer wandering around, oblivious to us. I thought about screaming randomly, to release the suspense that was building in my gut. I just knew that Jason would probably jump a hundred feet into the air. Literally.

That would be funny . . .

_BOOM! _An explosion shook the ground, making us jump and Felix yelp.

We all reached for out weapons - me uncapping Riptide, Jason flipping his coin, and Nico twisting the skull on his ring. Felix didn't have a weapon, but that didn't stop him. In his hand grew a dagger of ice, and I didn't doubt that it could do damage. Not with that serrated jagged edge. I shuddered, that thing would cause some carnage.

Demons started pouring out of nowhere, but we saw our target: the weird black and silver-robed demon with black balls of energy in his palms. I glanced at the others. "Ready?" I asked. We didn't have time to go over our plan - not like we needed to, though. They nodded, and we divided to do out respective parts.

Nico stabbed his Stygian iron sword into the ground at his feet and yelled, "Serve me!"

Cracks opened up at his feet and skeletons crawled out of the earth, called up from the underworld to serve the king of ghosts. The skeletons immediately began attacking the monsters, reeking havoc. Jason leapt into the air and started fighting the airborne monsters. While they held off most of the monsters, Felix and I circled around the chaos and cornered the demon. I prayed to every god and goddess I'd ever had the misfortune - ahem, _fortune, _my bad - of meeting. Maybe we'd have some luck this time.

Why am I always wrong?

The demon seemed the anticipate our movements and started hurtling black balls at us. I remembered when I was thirteen and got attacked by some laestrygonians playing dodge ball. _Great,_ I thought. _Another game of let's-pound-Percy dodge ball. _I yanked Felix out of the path of another energy ball and wondered why the other didn't come with us again. Oh right. "_They will be more likely to attack if there isn't an army of demigods with murder in their eyes waiting,"_ said Annabeth.

Whatever.

I narrowly missed getting hit by another ball and had to pull Felix to safety about a half-dozen times before I finally got an opening. The demon had to reload, it seemed. Fine by me. "_Now!_" I yelled at Felix. I concentrated and a stream of water rose from the ground, and arched around the demon, enclosing him in a watery fist.

"Now!" I yelled again, frantic.

Felix raised his hands and white mist flowed from them, and engulfed the water. When the mist fell to the ground, there was a big ball of ice with one angry demon in the middle. I frowned at it. "Well, it's not the prettiest Christmas decoration, but it'll do." I grinned at the furious look on the demon's face. "Come on, smile! That will make it a little bit more presentable!"

Nico and Jason, who had finished off the last monsters, walked over. "What tree are going to put it on? It's kind of big." Jason grinned.

I pursed my lips. "I don't know. I was thinking it would look lovely in Tartarus, though. It would really cheer the place up."

Uncertainty flickered through the demon's eyes momentarily.

"It can hear us!" I said, surprised.

Jason shrugged. "Let's get it to the Argo II for questioning."

I nodded, "Oh, and we have a lot of questions, too."

* * *

"Where is Setne?"

"What kind of monster are you?"

"How do we reverse the curse?"

"Why do your eyes change color?"

To answer how it was talking, we had Leo melt through the ice, just at the demon's face. We promised it that it said anything that even remotely sounded like a spell, we would blast it to Tartarus. As is stood, the eye-color changing thing was giving me a headache. The demon's eyes were constantly changing from red to dark green, back to red and then green again. Depending on which color the eyes were was how we got our response, example:

"Are you working for Apophis?" Sadie snapped.

"Like I'd tell you a word, you demigod and magician scum!" The demon yelled while its eyes were red.

We got the best answers when they were green. "So where is Setne?" Annabeth asked quickly, while its eyes were green.

"I-I don't know. The ghost is very discreet. He moves from place to place."

"How do we cure this curse you've sent on them?" She pressed desperately.

"It's confusing. It was almost like I was watching myself do those things." The demon mused. "Well, I know that there is a pool thing somewhere at the birthplace of the gods. Taking a dip in that should do the trick."

Confusing? Yes. Now was it the birthplace of the gods thing was worried about? No. This demon was talking like a normal person. It was freaking me out. I butted in. "Why are you doing that? What, do you have split personality disorder?"

The demon looked down. Well, it glanced down with its eyes. "I'm not sure. It's a battle of wills. Unfortunately, they always send me on attacks when my will is weakest, so I can't fight." I opened up my mouth to speak, but the demon - I was beginning to wonder if it even was a demon - rushed on. "This is what will happen to you when the curse finishes its toll. It happened to me and my twin brother."

"But why? I thought he only needed a magician, and two demigods." Annabeth asked.

"He needs two demigods, one magician, and two -" He - it was clearly a he - was cut off by himself as the red-eyed personality came back.

"I will never tell you demigod and magician scum anything!" He roared.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, well your alternate ego seems to thing differently."

"That pathetic child will not be in control for a while!" The demon yelled triumphantly.

My head snapped up. "_Child?_ You mean there's a normal kid in there?"

"Seaweed Brain!" Annabeth's voice cut through my thoughts. "Of course! This _thing_ was once one of us, human. H-he must have been hit and didn't make it to the birthplace of the gods in time, or didn't even know about it."

I blanched. "I'm going to turn into that?!"

The demon laughed, a nasty metallic sound. "You should be honored to be a host of Apophis!"

Carter staggered. "T-that's impossible!"

"He's just trying to shake us up." I uncapped Riptide. "Either you tell us how to get us to the birthplace of the gods, or I will send you to Tartarus." The demon opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. "And if you think that I believe you for a moment about you being some poor kid you're sorely mistaken."

The demon scowled. "Do you think that threatening me with do anything?"

I shrugged. "If you won't tell us anything, then you aren't worth the trouble of being alive." I started to swing Riptide, hoping that the demon wouldn't call my bluff.

The demon let out a startled shriek. "Alright! Alright! I will tell you how to get there!"

I stopped mid-swing. "Oh?"

"Yes! But if I do, you have to set me free." The demon stared at me defiantly.

I scowled, and looked and Annabeth and the others. They all nodded. "Fine." I snapped. "What are the coordinates?"

He rattled off a series of numbers, and Leo ran to the controls to plot the knew course. I raised Riptide again. "You double-cross us and I will not hesitate to send you straight to the underworld."

It nodded, but didn't stop scowling.

Annabeth called us to the mess hall, where we all stood - apart from Leo and Calypso, who were at the controls - in silence for a while, taking everything in. "I have a plan." I said.

Annabeth gave me a mock-shocked look. "_Really_ Seaweed Brain? _A plan?_"

"Yeah, yeah, shut up Wise Girl." I grinned. "I say as soon as we get to this little swimming pool we dunk that guy so fast he doesn't know what is happening."

Piper rolled her eyes. "That's your elaborate plan?"

I grinned. "Yeah, I agree. The demon will never see it coming."

**A/N:**

**So here's another chapter! Sorry for the long wait, I was busy over the weekend - it had to do with using my brain for hours on end so I was exhausted for a few days after :D **

**I'm not sure if any of you are wondering about Calypso, but I'll solve that in the next chapter. I was orginally planning her to have a bigger part, but there's a lot of characters in the story as it is. Sorry. **

**Review! If there's anything you want me to add, or change, or improve, I WILL do it, so comment what's bothering you or what's great :D**

**LuneEtSidera**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: I'm sooo sorry for the long wait! I hit a bit of writers block, and I didn't write anything until I got inspiration. I put a lot of effort behind this story and I want it to be as good as I can possibly make it. And Carter's my favorite character (besides for Nico and Leo) so I took extra-long perfecting this chapter. I hope you enjoy! **

**CHAPTER TEN**

**CARTER**

It's official. Never, ever trust some random demon.

Okay, maybe it wasn't totally the demon's fault, but still I lay on the blame on it. As we traveled across the United States for Washington, which was where the coordinates pointed us to, the monster attacks kept getting worse and worse. Of course this was just another day in the park for us - you really get used to getting attacked when you're a magician. Or a demigod, I suppose. I was kind of glad to be able to focus on something else besides the knew prophecy. Now that the gods could return I felt more energy. Sadie and I had deducted that Isis and Horus taken their normal spots hitchhiking in us again, so at least I was strong enough the fight the curse.

Fine by me, as long as I get to hit some demons. It must be the war god coming out in me, but really, it was refreshing to rid the world of killer demons and monsters. After hosting Horus, I felt urges to challenge people - and animals, strangely - to duels to the death. Thankfully, I could control those urges, but it made training fun with the other initiates. They knew that there in for a treat sparring me. I really preferred swords and hand-to-hand combat - I'd been working on my martial arts with Bast, and I'm proud to say I feel like Chuck Norris - to spells. It's my inner war god coming out in me.

So, getting off topic here.

The demon wasn't a normal demon. I had a sneaking suspicion that what it said about once being human might be real. Either that, or it had the worse case of multiple personality disorder ever. I couldn't be sure, though, because old Red-Eye would not relinquish control for Green-Eye to save his life. Even after Percy threatened to send him to - what was it? - Tartarus, it kept its mouth shut. We decided that it would do better for us alive, so we didn't press to have any interviews with Green-Eye. I agreed with Percy: as soon as we get to the enchanted pool thing, we were dumping this guy in so fast he couldn't blink.

I wished I had a camera for the expression that will be on the demon's face. No doubt it would be priceless.

Bast had left a few hours ago for the 21st Nome, stating that without me, Sadie and Zia there it wouldn't be adequately defended. I really think that all of our initiates could handle themselves wonderfully in a fight, but there is no arguing with the cat goddess. The girl Calypso also left, saying that Festus - the happy dragon - had just taken off and she'd been curious as to where he was going. I personally think she was just looking for an excuse to see Leo Valdez. I kept the thought hidden, but it was written all over Percy and Sadie's faces. Those two are way too much alike for my tastes. One Sadie was hard enough. Now her personality twin is here. Talk about a never-ending nightmare.

Sadie almost killed me for that.

We were crossing Texas. It was bittersweet, I remembered going across Texas on my first mission with Sadie to defeat Set and save our father, along with the rest of the world. That hadn't worked out as planned. We never even completely defeated Set, we had to let him go so he would be on our side during the war with the bigger bad guy, Apophis. That had been one of the hardest choices of my life: letting the man who killed my father go free. Even after we defeat the Serpent we still weren't in an exactly friend-like relationship with the god of evil. Yes, sweet memories.

I closed my eyes, and all the magicians that had died in the Nome in Texas during the war with Apophis flashed by. Explosions, a lone stay buckle, a broken violin. A lump formed in my throat, and countless nights when I'd woken up in a cold sweat came back. I still had nightmares about the 51st Nome. It wasn't fair. All those people deserved to see the end; they should have been able to watch as the Serpent was should have been present at the party after, livening up the 1st Nome in Egypt.

Just thinking about it, and then remembering that Apophis was rising, _again,_ made me angry. It was almost disrespectful for their memory. No, it _was_ disrespectful to their memory. As I looked out at the flat, dry land of Texas, I promised myself that their sacrifice would be useless. We will prevail, again. Even if I had to travel the way to the Sea of Chaos again, and execrate him again, we'd win. I pounded my fist on the railing, wishing I had a dummy or something to release my anger on.

Sadie walked over and leaned against the railing. She pursed her lips. "I know what your thinking," she said. "It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault." She said it like a chant, as if she was trying to convince herself as well as me.

"I know, I know," I sighed. "But it's hard, you know?"

"I know," said a voice from behind.

I turned and saw, to my surprise, Leo. He fidgeted nervously. "Sadie told me about what happened here. I know what it's like to blame yourself for someone's death. I'm a fire user, and . . . well, one night Gaea came and freaked me out. I lost control and my mom's workshop burned down. She didn't -" He cut himself off. "Yeah, just don't blame yourself for stuff. It will only weigh you down." He hesitated, and then continued. "I had that on my conscious for awhile - I still do - and it's hard to live with. At least you weren't directly the reason for your mom or dad's deaths."

I was mildly surprised. I didn't think that Leo was capable of such heavy talking. "Um, thanks. I'll try that." Really, what do you say to story like that? That's pretty deep.

I probably would have said something else really intelligent, like: "Oh, a fire?" When Annabeth yelled, "Green-Eyes!"

That was kind of a code word for when the demon had green eyes and would speak to us. Real creative, I know. We should get a reward.

We rushed over, and the demon - who was still stuck in a giant ball of ice with his face peeking out - scowled, its eyes brilliant green. "You have to stop here! There's another of-of . . . my kind here!" Green-Eyes scrambled for words, like he was having a hard time finding the right sentences. He sounded frantic.

I was skeptical, and so was everyone else. "Why should we go down and get this other demon?"

"I-It's important!" Green-Eyes begged.

"But why?" I pressed, despite feeling bad for it. It really looked desperate.

"Because he has the final coordinates to the actual birthplace of the gods!" The demon snapped.

I scowled. "You didn't feel it necessary to tell us this earlier?"

Leo suddenly called to us with the inter-com from the controls. "Um, guys, I was looking at the coordinates, and -"

"They only take us to the edge of Washington," Annabeth cut him off. "I know. This guy is saying we need the other demon to get there."

Zia frowned. I felt my hairs rise on end, because she had a look that I hadn't seen since she was lobbing fireballs at flowerpots in the Duat, and for the second time that day I felt the urge to yell, _dunk!_. "How do we know you aren't lying to us again."

Green-Eyes answered by going back to Red-Eyes. A chorus of groans followed this change, and the demon started shouting again. "I'll never tell you anything! Never, ever, ever, ever -"

Jason rolled his eyes. "What about the little thing about there being another demon like you in Texas?"

The demon snorted. "Right. _That._ Uh-"

"Answer enough," Octavian interrupted. "Think we can pull it off? I'm pretty confident that we're going to need this other demon to find the birthplace of the gods. We could search Washington for months and not find anything."

Nico, who had sneaked up on us again, scowled in synchronicity with everyone else. "I hate to admit it, but he's right. We're going to have to risk it."

Sadie nodded. "But we can't send everyone. A few people need to stay behind and watch this freak of nature over here."

"Hey!" Green-Eyes had returned. "I am _not_ a freak of nature!"

Percy winced. "Sorry to break this to you, but you are."

The demon scoffed. "Nonsense! I am the best-looking bloke in the world." Sarcasm? Well, that was new.

Nico raised an eyebrow. "'Bloke?' are we British now?"

"Hey!" Sadie snapped. "Watch it, Death Breath."

I rolled my eyes. Time to bring it back to topic. Really, the ADHD was getting a little over-the-top. "So who is staying and who is leaving?"

Leo shrugged, "I don't know about anyone else but I want to be on this mission."

Zia perked up. "I wish to go as well."

I immediately felt better. "That's three people, counting me. Anyone else?"

Nico raised his hand weakly. "Count me in. This Setne character is an insult to my father."

Of course. Nico was the son of Hades. An escaped ghost was going to be a bit annoying to him.

The ship jerked, startling everyone from their thoughts. Leo called over that they were about going in for a land but needed to know where the base was that Setne had the other demon hidden. Green-Eyes was happy to oblige, which made my internal-betrayal radar go crazy. Why was this demon so willing to help us out? He was frozen, and we were not treating him like an honored guest. Maybe Green-Eyes figured that there was no point in being rude. I wished he would bang that into Red-Eye's head. The whole split personality thing was giving me a headache. There was a groaning sound, and I knew the landing gear was coming out. The ship shuddered briefly, and we touched down on the earth.

Annabeth was fine with staying behind - she wanted to question the demon longer. Sadie was having fun teasing the Green-Eyes about how he looked - man that demon was touchy - and ticking Red-Eyes off to no end. I swear that he was about to blow a fuse somewhere inside his brain. If he were free he would have blasted Sadie to kingdom come right then and there. Percy seemed a little put-out about not coming, and Jason wasn't much better. We had to tell them that it was the Egyptian's turn to take the spotlight, besides, the ship would be better protected and we couldn't afford the demon escaping. Felix was having fun with his penguins, and was keeping an eye on the controls. He seemed to have been taken under Leo's wing.

It didn't take Zia and me long to get ready for the trip - we kept most of our stuff in a storage compartment-like thing in the Duat. Leo and Nico didn't need to get ready. Nico's sword was always on his finger in ring form, and Leo's weapons came from a mixture of his brain and his magical tool belt. I tried to explain to him that the tool belt was actually a link between this world and the Duat, which is why he could store anything in there, whether it's very large or small. I don't really think he got or - or cared - but he nodded.

We left. There was no large goodbye thing, and I was glad for it. It made me hope that maybe we wouldn't have much trouble in this fortress.

It was like the sun was physically beating down on our backs. We'd only been walking for a few minutes, but Leo and Nico, whose skin was fairer than Zia and me, were turning red. We didn't speak much, but the ugly scowl on Nico's face betrayed his irritation. Leo didn't look much better, although he still seemed have a permanent smile on his face. We stumbled through dry desert, with a cloudless sky stretching overhead and tumbleweed blowing around. Leo occupied himself by setting the tumbleweed on fire when it crossed his path.

The Argo II never seemed to get any smaller or make any sign that we were getting farther away. It was like we were walking on a treadmill and were getting no where. Leo groaned and pulled a device out of his tool belt and consulted to it, and then released a breath of relief. "Okay," he said. "We aren't walking in place after all. We've gone almost four miles."

"It should be around here somewhere, right?" Zia asked.

"Duh," Nico sniped.

She shot him an evil look, but Leo cut her off before she cursed - the Egyptian hieroglyph type of curse - Nico to oblivion. "We're almost there. Here!"

He pointed to an innocent-looking board laying on the ground. It was half covered in sand and had white mold scattered up it. Leo knelt and pulled it aside, revealing a trap-door. Leo gave his wild-man grin. "Think we'll find Reyna this time?"

"Who?" I asked.

"Nevermind," he muttered. He pulled at the latch, and to all of our surprise, it opened freely. "That was too easy," he said in a low voice.

I couldn't agree more, but we had to take the risk. I glared at the innocent-looking shaft in the ground leading gods-know how far down. I was very relieved to see the metal rungs sticking out of the side of the shaft. At least I would had to awkwardly slide down. Too late, I wished we'd taken Percy and Felix with us so they could do the ice-box prison thing again. Zia and I would have to rely on a really good binding spell to trap the demon when we ran across it. I ground my teeth. There was no point drawing it out any longer; I swung myself over the edge and lowered myself down.

I was a long descent, and I wanted to personally kill whoever built this so far down. Well it's good to know that I'm going to die of exhaustion before I even got to the second demon. I decided that I was going to kill the demon back on the Argo II if this was a trap. I looked down, and - _hallelujah_ - the floor, close enough to drop down with breaking any bones! I let go of the rungs and hit the ground, landing lightly while using hands to help me keep my balance - like a cat. _Bast would be proud,_ I though with a grin.

I moved out of the way, and Zia dropped beside me, followed by Leo and Nico. Leo was still grinning like a madman and was randomly bursting into flames. "I feel like James Bond or something!" He said.

You know, Apophis could scream in Leo's face and I don't think the son of Hephaestus would lessen that smile by even one molar. I imagined Leo grinning while blow-torching the Serpent in the face. The image made me snicker.

"What?" Leo asked.

"Nothing," I said. Some things are better kept to ourselves.

I surveyed the fortress. I felt a wave of deja vu. It was as if I'd stepped into one of the countless Egyptian tombs I'd been in with my dad while we were still travelling the world together. The walls were made of sandstone and were covered in elaborately painted pictures, hieroglyphs and carvings. The ceiling was black, painted with hundreds of thousands of stars, vaguely in the shape of the sky goddess Nut. On the floor, which had a thin layer of sand, was faded images of Geb, the god of the earth. I realized along the was were paintings of Shu holding the and earth apart. I had conflicted feelings about Shu. He had helped us, but then he was also a major git to Sadie and Walt/Anubis (or Walubis, as she sometimes called him to irritated him . . . them, whatever.)

Leo and Nico looked around in awe. Nico gave a low whistle. "You Egyptians really go all-out in the decorating, don't you?"

I shrugged. "When you want to make sure you have two eyes, a nose, mouth and ears in the afterlife, but not have six arms, you get really descriptive."

Leo gave me a look that said: _I don't even want to know._

_No you don't,_ I silently agreed.

I led the other down the corridor to the left, as that was the only way to go. The other way was a dead end. I went a few paces, and then stopped, cursing myself for being an idiot. "I forgot! We should put up an invisibility shield." It was ancient magic, only recently discovered and I was still having some difficulty controlling it. But I'd have to try, and the last few times I'd practiced I had been pretty successful. Basically what I did was snap, mutter a few words, concentrate, and image everyone in my immediate vicinity going invisible.

I frowned with concentration, thinking how the hall would look if we weren't there, empty. I felt a rush of cool air and I stopped chanting. I looked up and reached out, touching the edge of the barrier. A shimmering ripple spread out, and I grinned. "It worked!"

Zia smiled, a teasing glint in her eyes. "At least it doesn't look like a shimmering globe anymore."

I scowled at her, and pushed ahead, willing the shield to move with us. I was pleased by how well it was going. That was a terrible thing to think, I mean I'm in an enemy fortress, going down corridors with sharp turns. Bad things were bound to happen. I was just thinking how screwed we'd be if a monster flew around the corner, when it happened.

Three demons marched around the corner, and froze when they saw us. We mirrored them. One of them sniffed the air, and roared. I kind of lost control and the shield let out a sparkling shimmers before collapsing. For a second we just stood there.

Zia was the first to break into action. She pulled her staff out of the Duat, and I unsheathed my _khopesh._ Nico had his Stygian iron sword - which was wickedly awesome, by the way - and Leo had his flaming club. The demons didn't stand a chance. Or at least they didn't before twelve more crowded the narrow passageways. I cursed in ancient Egyptian; the corridors were too small for me to pull off my Horus avatar. I wondered briefly if they were designed this small for that very reason.

Leo and Zia glanced at each other and seemed to come to some silent agreement. Leo's hands filled with fire, and threw the fire in white-hot balls of torture and death, and Zia shot her staff out, directing them to the crowd of demons. Pretty soon the disgusting smell of barbecue monsters filled my nostrils, making me gag. Nico and I cut through the rest of them, and soon there was nothing but an area of the halls where the sand was a litter deeper. There was one more demon, smaller than the rest, looking at us with wide eyes. Why did I recognize the eyes?

They were green. Green-Eyes!

I gasped, "Him! We need him alive!"

The demon did what was logical when a bunch of kids who just killed his companions. He turned tail and ran.

We ran after him, which was unfortunately much slower than him. The demon dunked and swerved gracefully out of the way of our magical attacks, and flew around the corners of halls. We nearly lost him twice, first when he sent an attack of his own at us and cause plumes of dust to billow into the air, obscuring our vision. He almost got away again when he tricked us by somehow 'throwing' his footsteps down a corridor to our right, while he crept off to the right. Thankfully Nico was very vigilant.

"How did you notice that?" I gasped.

"When you're stuck in Tartarus for days," Nico snapped back, "you learn to become aware of your surroundings."

Finally the demon made a mistake and got cornered in a dead-end corridor. We all stood there for a few seconds, trying to catch our breath. The demon raised his hand, and I lifted my _khopesh. _"Whatever you're going, don't" I warned.

The demon scowled. "What do you want?"

"Uh, tell you later?" I suggested, before slamming the pommel of my sword on its head. I tried not to feel guilty as it crumpled. Zia worked on the binding spell, and I helped by pouring some of my magical energy into her so she could make it as powerful as possible. I wished she could use the ribbons of Hathor, but there was a year-limit of them and we'd used them only six months ago on a prisoner in my dad's court who was trying to escape. The dude had looked like a pink mummy all throughout his trial. It was quite funny at the time.

Hieroglyphs floated in the air around the demon, and I slung him over my shoulder. It was covered in glowing purple chains, the best thing we could be besides the ribbons. I turned, and hieroglyphs that ran across the walls lit up and glowed blue briefly before fading out. Then it did it again, like a pulsating alarm. Alarm.

Great. Just great. I guess we were going have every monster and its mother's brothers over here pretty soon.

We doubled back, and stumbled through several passages. If I'd paid more attention at the time I would have noticed the hieroglyphs changing - much like how they did in the Red Pyramid - becoming more gruesome and showing images of a snake curling around the world. One particular mural showed the Earth dissolving into a black sea of destruction. Apophis slithered in the ocean, splashing in his pool of death, while the whole time Setne floated above, watching haughtily. I growled angrily. Set was going to pay for his stupid megalomaniac dreams. With each new hieroglyphic, picture, and carving, I felt my temper rising dangerously. Finally another mural of Setne's ugly face set me off the edge.

I stopped and glowered at it, feeling my magic stir with my anger. Suddenly the whole wall shattered, sending rocks and dust into the air. I got cut on the arm pretty bad, but it was _definitely_ worth it. Zia raised her eyebrows at me, and I shrugged. "I was getting sick of seeing his beaky nose."

Leo snickered, but Zia started pushing me on. "Come on! We don't want to get caught."

"I'd help if I even knew how to get out," I muttered. The truth? I had absolutely NO idea how to get out. I had gotten turned around while chasing the demon around. If that monster could not tell us how to get to the spring, I was going to send him to the Underworld myself.

I huffed and started off again, not running but more of a fast walk. Then by some divine luck, I found on the scratches in the walls that I'd left to find my way back. I let out a breath of relief and followed it. We took a few turns, but with every turn I was getting more and more confused. I didn't recognize anything . . . Just as I realized it was probably a trap, we stumbled into a large chamber.

For second I was reminded of the red pyramid, and I expected to see a large throne with Set sitting it, all red and gloating. Instead, it was empty. Large support pillars reached up, holding up the immense ceiling, with more carvings spiraling around them. I looked down at the floor, and saw - too late - the binding hieroglyphs on the floor. I yelped and jumped out of the way as earthen tendrils sprang from the ground, and closed into a cage of dirt. Zia and Leo weren't so lucky, but Nico also escaped.

Leo banged the earthen bars with a screw driver. "UGH! Gaea makes her comeback!"

Zia started lobbing fireballs at the cage bars, her face an angry mask. When none her attacks worked, she muttered a spell that turned into a _khopesh_ similar to mine, and started hacking at the cage. Still her efforts did nothing to destroy the cage. Finally she gave up and cursed. "Carter you're going to have to find the glyphs that break the binding spell. This isn't like any magic I've seen before."

Nico scowled. "It's because it isn't completely Egyptian magic." He studied the bars of Leo's cage, a dark look on his face. "It more like a hybrid of them both. I'm guessing that if we destroy the hieroglyphs that control the magic -"

"Yes, yes," a sardonic voice boomed as though it was on a loud speaker. "All of this brainstorming is rather interesting, isn't it?" They said it in a tone that made it clear they thought it was very boring.

I growled. "Setne? Is that you? Show yourself!"

The ghost materialized in front of me, that manic grin on his face. "Carter, I'm impressed. You made it this far!"

I really wished he'd just drop the nice-talk and get to business. "What in the name of Egypt are you doing?! _Why are you bringing back Apophis?_" My voice went a touch hysterical on the last part as my anger grew. Even though it had barely been four days, I was beginning to lose patience. What was Setne playing at? Was he crazy?

Setne frowned at me. "I'm not sure I should explain everything to you. But I will assure you that I have everything under control. You see, it's more like I'm recreating Apophis how I want him - powerful, but not so deadly that I can't rule over him."

"Yes, because clearly Apophis loves to be second-in-command!" I snapped sarcastically.

Setne rolled his eyes at my expense. "Okay, sure, Apophis is a bit of rebel. But even _he_ doesn't want to get banished again, right snakey boy?"

The ground rumbled - and I was pretty sure it was in irritation, agreement.

I struggled to reign in my rather scattered patience. "Setne, without sounding too cliche, _why_ are you playing god? Is causing a country-wide mass-panic not enough?"

Setne pouted. "Yes, but as we all know, your daddy dearest doesn't approve of me being free. Plus what fun doing mischief if you aren't a god? Yes, I'm looking forward to being Setne, the king of the gods. Perhaps I can even be known as the god of mischief. . ." His voice trailed off, weighing the possibilities of godhood.

"HEY LISTEN!" We swung around to Leo.

"Never. Do. That. Again." I said slowly.

Despite being held in a cage of dirt, he grinned. "Figured you'd get that. Anyways, as honorable as wanting to be king of the gods, mischief-maker extraordinaire, do you _really_ have to dissolve to world into nothingness? What does that give you?"

The crazy ghost laughed maniacally. "Did any of those murals show the world being _completely_ destroyed?"

Leo muttered under his breath, "how can you just destroy _half_ of the world? Wouldn't the gravitational pull and orbit of the sun kind of ruin that plan?"

Before Setne could open his big mouth for some long-drawn out explanation, I interrupted. "Whatever. For the last time, _what do you want, Setne?_" I was so-o-o fed up with this old ghost it wasn't even funny. Sadie was going to have competition on who threw Setne's heart down Ammit's throat.

Setne gave a long-suffering sigh. "Carter, Carter. I like you, I really do! But you're in my way, I know from our past . . . interactions that you will stop at nothing to keep me from completing my goals."

"Stole the words right from my mouth," I muttered.

Nico snorted. "Right. Setne, when my father get his hands on you, you will _wish_ your heart went to Ammit."

Wait, what? I turned around to face the son of Hades. "What do you mean he will wish his heart went to Ammit? Of course it will!"

Nico gave a creepy laugh, and I almost felt bad for Setne. Then I remembered how he set Blood-Stain Blade against me and Zia and I forgot the feeling. "This has gone past the Egyptian side of things, Carter. Believe it or not, I think my father actually cares that Setne's threatening to kill me. And I'm the Ghost King, in case that ghost has forgotten. Setne will have a lovely time in the Fields of Punishment." There was something dark in Nico's eyes as he said that sent chills up my spine. It left be with to doubt that you did _not_ want to go the Greek punishment.

Maybe I should have defended the Egyptian side, said that he belonged to Osiris and Osiris only. But honestly, after everything Setne's done, I wouldn't mind seeing him get a little punishment for a while. I shrugged. "Okay."

Setne looked down-right outraged. "Excuse me? 'The ghost' is still standing right in front of you!"

"Unfortunately," Nico muttered. Leo snickered.

"And you have no power over me, Nico di Angelo. The chaos magic of Apophis ensures that." Setne continued. He started to fade out, calling as he disappeared. "Carter, to answer your question, _this_ is what I plan to do to you!"

An army of demon started to flood in, brandishing weapons and yelling - well, as much as they could with axes and wrenches as heads - for my blood. I sighed irritably. Here we go again. I turned to Zia. "Are you working on this cages?" I asked.

She nodded, still looking frustrated. "Yes, but it will take awhile."

Nico rolled his eyes sarcastically. "By all means, take your time." He swung his sword, the dark blade gleaming in the blue and white lights radiating from the pulsating hieroglyphs. "We'll hold the monsters off."

I was glad we in a large chamber - it meant I could take on my Horus warrior avatar. I concentrated, and for the first time in a while, I heard the voice of Horus in my head. _Long time no see, Carter._

_Not the time for smart comments,_ I sent back.

_Well it's great to see you too, Carter. _I could feel Horus pouring through my memories, trying to come up-to-date on what has happened over the last few months. He stopped on Leo's comment and snickered. _'Hey listen,'_ _I hate Navi._

_REALLY?_ I yelled at him mentally. _I need the avatar! We're about to be slaughtered, in case you haven't noticed. _

_Yeah, yeah, fine._ Horus muttered back sulkily.

Really, what was the point of having a god in my head, if all they did was act like an immature five year old?

A surge of energy spread through me, and a holographic body flickered to life around me, lifting me into the air. My _khopesh _became enormous in the avatar's hand, power crackling in the air as my inner war strained to attack. I now towered a good fifteen feet in the air, literally filled to the brim with energy from Horus. I realized I hadn't felt this powerful since . . . well since I'd been the Eye of Horus during the battle with Apophis. It was a refreshing feeling, but also dangerous. I knew that I shouldn't get used to the feeling. It was still a bit dangerous to house a god fully for too long. Unless your name is Walt.

Getting off topic. Ugh, Sadie would perk up when I mentioned Walt's name.

I glanced over at Nico, curious about how he'd fight. I've never seen him in battle, but judging by the dark aura that always seemed to follow him around, he was powerful. He took a fighting stance, his sword ready. I noticed the shadows in the room were bending and twisting around him, swathing him in darkness. Fear and death seemed to emanate from him in thick waves, making the entire demon army hesitate. I realized just how powerful Nico di Angelo was at that moment, and he didn't even look like he was trying. He had a glint in his eyes that hinted he still had a few cards up his sleeve.

Then the demons got over the irrational fear handing in the air and attacked.

**A/N:**

**So there you go! Again, I'm really really sorry for the long wait! It's not that I'm super lazy - well not mostly - I just kind of took my time on this chapter :D SHould the next chapter be Zia or Nico? Neither have gotten a chapter yet and I'm at a lose on who to pick!**

**I know I ended it without much of a battle scene, - and a bit of cliffhanger - but it was already almost 6000 words long and I didn't really want to have a chapter that long. I like to keep each chapter relatively even in length, and it's too hard to scrounge out 6000 words every chapter. If I did it would take this long for every chapter.****  
**

**I really like getting ideas from other people (it makes it all the more fun!) so comment anything you want me to add, or any story line twists you think are cool. Or if it sucks. I honestly don't care if you flame, if only it's constructive to make me a better writer.**

**Maybe the 'hey listen!' Navi reference was stupid, but I just couldn't resist! **

**~LuneEtSidera**


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